Middle East & Arab World / US-Iran August 2026-

Middle East & Arab World / US-Iran May – 27 July 2026

Trump’s Destruction of Iranian Life Is Strengthening the Regime
Targeting civilian infrastructure is a foolish and cruel error.
The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran…continues to undermine long-term U.S. national interests by wreaking havoc on Iran’s critical civilian infrastructure and putting the entire Persian Gulf region’s economy and environment in grave danger.
U.S. President Donald Trump promised to support Iranian protesters, but he has dealt a blow to the Iranian people’s ability to overthrow the regime by conducting the war as if it is a war against the entire nation of Iran rather than the current regime in power –Foreign Policy 24 July

7 September
Trump’s blockade pushes Iran toward military escalation
(CNN) As Washington abandons talks with Iran for an aggressive economic pressure campaign, a cornered Tehran is now threatening military escalation and a wider war to force negotiators back to the table.
US President Donald Trump has dismissed diplomacy with the Islamic Republic, calling a June ceasefire agreement one that “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.” His administration has instead piled pressure on Iran through a global sanctions campaign, military strikes and a maritime blockade that stops goods from leaving or entering the country.
The multifront campaign has put Iran under unprecedented pressure, forcing its fatigued population to endure still more strain. Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, meanwhile, remains conspicuously absent. Tuesday will mark his sixth month in hiding in an attempt to avoid the fate of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the US-Israeli war against Iran in late February.
Iran’s military officials are increasingly touting new tactics in response to the pressure, threatening to target nations taking part in the blockade and warning that they could broaden the conflict.

4 September
Trump calls Iran conflict ‘small potatoes’ and defends Vance’s position that it’s not a ‘war’
(AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said the conflict in Iran is “small potatoes” as he defended Vice President JD Vance for asserting that months of on-and-off attacks in the Middle East are not a “war.”
Asked during an Oval Office exchange about Vance’s comments made a day earlier, Trump said U.S. strikes on Iran are now “intermittent” and “a lot of people don’t call it a war.” The conflict has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37.5 billion and left 18 U.S. service members dead.
“I can understand what he’s saying,” said Trump. He added: “I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing.”
Vance, during a White House press briefing Thursday, rejected the use of the word “war” to describe the U.S. fighting with Iran and steered clear of predicting that the 6-month-old conflict would be over by November’s midterm elections, in which Republicans are trying to hang on to their narrow majorities in Congress.

1-2 September
US-Iran strikes raise fears of renewed war across the Middle East
The U.S. military said it struck air defenses, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites while Iran reported hits on multiple targets near the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump Returns to a Familiar Playbook as the War With Iran Flares Up Again
The United States seems increasingly bogged down in Iran after six months of conflict, despite President Trump’s declarations of military dominance.
(NYT) On Tuesday night, after the latest exchange of fire over control of the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. Trump called on the Iranian people to rise up — something he did at the outset of the war six months ago, before he acknowledged that his command was easier said than done.
In a social media post, Mr. Trump also brushed off the stalled negotiations with Iran.
“I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement,” he wrote on Tuesday night, hours after the United States carried out a fresh wave of attacks and Iran hit back.
“I like our position now much better, with almost total control of the Hormuz Strait, and their economy totally collapsing,” Mr. Trump continued. “They are just playing out the inevitable. When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
The post followed a 24-hour stretch during which Mr. Trump’s by-now familiar playbook for the conflict was on full display. The president went from boasting that Iran was defeated militarily, a “failed nation” in economic disarray, to threatening an apocalyptic attack that would leave “very little left” of the country after it had defied his declarations and demands.

Iran fires on its Gulf neighbors, retaliating for US strikes after a wedding was hit
(AP) — Iran fired on U.S. allies in the Gulf early Wednesday following a night of American bombardment that Iranian state media says included a deadly strike on a wedding party.
The latest violence came after a monthlong lull in fighting. The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections.
Fighting has escalated since the American military hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, saying Iran was planning to use them to lay mines. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted.
American military resources are stretched and political pressure in Washington is mounting, while Iran’s economy has been battered by sanctions and an American naval blockade. Iran’s currency hit another record low on Wednesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging 2.20 million rials for one U.S. dollar, a 10% hike from last week’s record.
Neither side can continue indefinitely between full-scale war and a truce, said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, an international think tank.
U.S. Launches Intense New Wave of Attacks in Iran
Iranian officials said the strikes caused significant damage, including killing four people and injuring several dozens at a wedding. Iran said it retaliated by firing on U.S. bases in the region.
(NYT) The new strikes came three days after the United States and Iran traded fire for the first time in a month. The latest strikes were far broader and more intense, according to initial reports, and Iranian officials said civilians had been killed, including at a wedding. While it was unclear if the violence would escalate further, the hostilities underscored how remote a durable solution to the conflict remains, six months into a conflict that Mr. Trump once predicted would last a few weeks.
US military completes latest strikes against Iran, while Trump vows more for Tehran’s retaliation
(AP) — The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday and Tehran fired missiles and drones at various sites across the region in response as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. One U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding, killing five people and wounding dozens, local officials said.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement Tuesday evening that it had completed the latest barrage against Iranian military targets including air defense sites, radar systems and maritime assets.
The U.S. strikes followed others on Sunday that abruptly ended a month without military action and threatened to fully reignite a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections. The renewed fighting comes after President Donald Trump had appeared to pivot toward trying to bend Iran to his will through economic sanctions.

30 August
Iran’s Khamenei urges Muslim nations to ‘confront’ enemies
(AP) Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, urged rulers of Muslim nations to “know your real enemy, understand its plans and confront it,” and called the U.S. and Israel enemies of all Islamic nations, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Six months after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, killing Khamenei’s father and other senior leaders, Khamenei still has not been seen publicly. His comments came in a letter to religious leaders attending a conference in Tehran.

28 August
For Trump, the Iran War Is Stuck Between Combat and Genuine Peace
The war has deteriorated over the past six months into Mr. Trump’s own version of a “forever war,” with no clear goals and no end in sight.
Peter Baker
(NYT) Mr. Trump’s war in Iran, which hit the six-month mark on Friday, is anything but accomplished. Half a year in, the conflict has deteriorated into a quagmire of the president’s own making with no clear goals, no obvious strategy and no end in sight. Mr. Trump, who came to power running against Mr. Bush’s “forever wars,” has staked his presidency on his own version.
For Mr. Trump, it may be the worst of both worlds. He finds himself stuck in a maddening purgatory between full-fledged combat and genuine peace. He is reluctant to resume an all-out bombardment despite his thunderous threats, yet has been unable so far to broker an agreement to end the war on satisfactory terms. He has no victory to take credit for, yet is paying the political price in terms of the toll on the American economy and his party’s chances in the fall elections.

24-26 August
Iran bets economic pain will pressure Trump in game of ‘chicken’
(Al Jazeera) Iran is betting global economic fallout from the war and Republicans worried about the midterms will force President Trump to back down first. That’s according to Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow who told ‘This is America’ that Tehran is playing a game of ‘chicken’.
US threatens severe sanctions against countries with economic ties to Iran
Washington launches campaign to isolate Tehran but it is unclear whether it will apply measures to China
(The Guardian)The US has threatened to impose severe sanctions against any country or entity maintaining economic ties with Iran, hoping to achieve with economic measures what military means have so far failed to do.
It is unclear, however, how far the Trump administration is prepared to go in confronting China, Iran’s biggest trading partner, which has signalled its resistance to US economic pressure to cut off links with an ally.
Iran, meanwhile, vowed retaliation against any country that took part in the US-led isolation campaign.
Launching what he called Operation Economic Outcast, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, called it an unprecedented campaign and compared it with the D-day Normandy landings, a turning point in the second world war.
Sina Toossi, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, said: “After nearly six months without a military or diplomatic victory, Washington appears to be trying to accomplish through intensified economic strangulation what military force has so far failed to achieve. But Tehran is answering that zero-sum approach with one of its own.”
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, however, said further military action was not off the table. “By no means are we foreclosing using ‌kinetic strikes anywhere in the ​strait of Hormuz or around Iran,” Hegseth ⁠told reporters on Monday.
Bessent unveils sweeping new Iran sanctions but delays toughest blow
The treasury secretary said Trump is contacting unspecified world leaders to demand support for the “economic asphyxiation” of the Iranian regime.
(WaPo) Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that “total financial isolation” of Iran could make U.S. force unnecessary

19 August
Iran war, said to be over “very soon,” nears 6 months
(Axios) The Iran war — defined by fits and starts and strain on America’s military — will hit the half-year mark next week with both Washington and Tehran betting they can outlast one another.
Why it matters: President Trump has repeatedly promised the fight would be quick, decisive and over “very soon.”
The big picture: The war’s length is pushing once-niche national-security issues — munitions levels, defense contracting, at-sea replenishment — into everyday conversation.
The Navy is the topic du jour, as prolonged deployments stress-test ships, sailors, Marines and their families.
Trump said this week he wanted to claim the Strait of Hormuz and posted a map on Truth Social labeling it a “U.S. territory.”
He also threatened to “bomb the shit” out of Oman, a country that has committed billions of dollars to buying U.S. weapons.
Days earlier, word spread that an American aircraft carrier in the Pacific, the USS George Washington, was being sent to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln.
That carrier’s time at sea — more than 250 days — came under scrutiny as reports emerged that several distressed service members tried jumping overboard.
Friction point: The Pentagon hasn’t held a press briefing in months. It has also faced criticism for obscuring troop deaths in an online tracker.

18 August
Trump says no talks planned with Iran, Tehran says Strait of Hormuz still shut
By Parisa Hafezi and Katharine Jackson
Trump says Strait of Hormuz is open to shipping, Iran denies this
Iran’s Qalibaf says reopening of strait hinges on ending port blockade, sanctions and military threats
(Reuters) – U.S. ​President Donald Trump said on Tuesday no talks were taking place with Iran and insisted the Strait of Hormuz was open, contradicting Iran’s assertion that the critical waterway remained shut to ‌shipping.
The receding prospects of a deal to end the nearly six-month conflict drove up oil prices again on Tuesday, while stock markets sagged and borrowing costs for major economies including the U.S. hit multi-decade highs, amid concerns about the long-term inflationary and fiscal impact of the crisis.

17 August
The 60-day deadline for an Iran peace deal is expiring. Here’s where things stand
(AP) The deal that U.S. President Donald Trump signed at Versailles in June set an ambitious 60-day deadline for ending the war with Iran and reaching an accord on its nuclear program.
The deadline was Monday [17 August], and the two sides are further apart than they were then.
Talks, such as they are, have focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting a U.S. blockade on Iran, both of which were supposed to have happened under the interim deal. There has been no sign of any compromise on the strait, or that detailed nuclear talks have even begun.
The U.S., meanwhile, has no good options for getting out of the war it started alongside Israel.
Acceding to Iran’s latest demands would mean giving it control over a critical international waterway that carried a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas before the war — and would be tantamount to admitting defeat. Escalating the deeply unpopular war would further draw down U.S. supplies of advanced missile interceptors, jolt the world economy, and drive up gas prices ahead of U.S. congressional elections.
So both sides have dug in, hoping the other will blink first. So far, neither has.
As Iran Truce Expires and Options Shrivel, Trump Lashes Out
President Trump took aim at Oman, a U.S. ally that has been mediating the talks, as efforts to end a war he started have faltered.
(NYT) As a crumbling truce with Iran officially collapsed on Monday, President Trump signaled his frustration at his inability to resolve a war that he started but cannot seem to end.
In an interview with Fox News, the president lashed out at an American ally, Oman, that has been trying to mediate negotiations with Iran.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them,” Mr. Trump said in a phone interview, according to Fox News’s Trey Yingst.
The latest threat toward Oman, which has facilitated talks between the United States and Iran for years and maintains that it is still a neutral mediator, came as Mr. Trump found himself without much leverage to reach the goals he set out at the start of the war.

12 August
Iran rejects Trump’s claim to ‘control’ Hormuz: What’s the latest in talks?
Iran declares Hormuz closure until US meets its demands and changes its ‘behaviour’ as global energy prices tick higher.
(Al Jazeera) According to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Mohsen Rezaei, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told China’s ambassador to Tehran, Cong Peiwu: “As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened.”
Iran remains defiant as it vows to fight US until demands met
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers say Iran has replaced more missiles and drones than it used, and cite falling US munition stocks.
Shortly after meeting China’s ambassador, Iran’s new security chief left no room for doubt about Tehran’s position after nearly six months of war with the United States.
“Iran’s message is clear: The Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until the US ends the war and blockade, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and agrees to a region-wide ceasefire, including in Lebanon and Gaza,” Mohsen Rezaei said in a social media post late on Tuesday.
Trump Claims Hormuz Control as US, Iran Harden Their Stances
President Donald Trump claimed the US had “total control over the Hormuz Strait,” as Washington and Tehran hardened their positions in deadlocked negotiations over the critical waterway.
“We own it,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington late Tuesday, an assertion Iran has dispelled via intermittent attacks on ships transiting the passage. “At some point, maybe they’ll do something, and then they get blown away.”
Trump has oscillated for months between threatening to resume attacks on Iran and expressing confidence that talks to bring an end to America’s war with the Islamic Republic are progressing. His latest comments came after Pakistan’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, told Bloomberg in Islamabad that the two sides are “close to some sort of arrangement” over Hormuz, a key sticking point.
The escalating rhetoric raises further doubt that any immediate deal can be reached over the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the US and Israel started attacking Iran on Feb. 28. While an interim peace deal was agreed in June, intermittent clashes and maritime traffic disruptions continue, with the terms of that accord now effectively obsolete.
Qatar and Pakistan have been mediating to reach an end to the conflict, which has claimed thousands of lives. On Wednesday, Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s office said he had delivered a message related to the ongoing situation in the region from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir to the Iranian leadership.
Al Jazeera previously reported that talks between Iran and Oman about reopening Hormuz to some maritime shipping had reached an advanced stage, citing a Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson. The US isn’t directly party to those discussions, though has resumed a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Mohsen Rezaee, the newly appointed secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said any agreement with Oman on control over the strait would remain separate from any full reopening, according to a report by state-run IRIB. What conditions Iran may seek to impose on traffic through the waterway remains unclear.
Iran conveyed additional demands to Washington through intermediaries, including that the US end the war and unfreeze blocked Iranian assets,
As Strait of Hormuz transit drops, Trump again says US has ‘control’
Just eight vessels crossed strait on Tuesday, down from 130 to 140 prior to the war as peace talks stall.

9 August
Hopes for Hormuz deal fade as Trump demands Iranian reparations
New demand in response to Iran call for compensation
Trump says Iran must pay for people killed in attacks, protests
Iran had said Oman deal on strait was near
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday responded to Iran’s conditions for a peace deal with his own demands ​that Iran pay compensation for people killed in wars, attacks and protests, in a rhetorical escalation likely to complicate efforts to reopen the Strait of ‌Hormuz.

7-8 August
Iran’s leaders think they have Trump cornered, but their strategy carries great risks
By Joseph Krauss and Amir-Hussein Radjy
(AP) … They know about the diminishing stockpiles of key U.S. weapons such as advanced missile interceptors. They know the war is deeply unpopular with Americans. They know that as long as the strait is largely closed, the price of gas and other goods will stay high ahead of U.S. congressional elections in November. They know that trying to open it by force would be costly and may require American ground troops. They know their Houthi allies in Yemen could widen the war and disrupt another major trade route.
But Iran’s strategy carries risks.
Trump points to strikes that have decimated Iran’s top leadership, navy and air force. He alternates between threatening escalation and saying talks are going well. Iran’s own economy has been battered, in part because of a U.S. blockade. Iranians rose up in mass protests just months ago and could do so again.
An evolving deal could give Iran a major win
Iran says it is close to reaching a deal with Oman to manage the strait, which runs between the countries. But on Saturday, Tehran said the strait will not open until the U.S. “corrects its behavior,” saying it must permanently end the war, lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets.
A deal with Oman would formalize Tehran’s control over what had been an open international waterway before the war, one that carried a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas. …
Formal control over even part of the strait would be a clear win for Iran and a loss for the U.S., which has yet to accomplish some of its various and shifting goals in the war.
It would also deal a blow to global norms on freedom of navigation and set a precedent that much of the world would find disturbing — that nations can shut down trade choke points at will.
China, which buys oil from Iran and has influence over it, said as recently as May that “normal and safe passage” through the strait should be restored.
… Iran has repeatedly said the Strait of Hormuz will not go back to being an open waterway, and that it will keep attacking ships trying to transit without its permission. Iran’s joint military command has called it an “unbreakable red line.”
“For Iran, the Strait of Hormuz has become a strategic lever for deterrence, maintaining the regional balance of power, and reshaping the security rules in the Persian Gulf,” said Mostafa Najafi, a Tehran-based security analyst.
That poses a major obstacle to ending the war, much less resolving the even more complex, long-standing dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran plots to deal Trump a blow in midterms by keeping him entangled in war
Patrick Wintour, Diplomatic editor
Iran has distrusted the US since the 1979 Islamic revolution, but their anger is now focused personally on Trump.
(The Guardian) Tehran has set out a protracted negotiating timetable designed to keep Donald Trump embroiled in the Iran conflict until the midterm elections, in the hope of inflicting the same ruinous blow on his presidency as Jimmy Carter suffered over the 1979-81 US embassy hostage crisis.
For many inside Iran, inflicting meaningful revenge on Trump is a legitimate and self-standing war aim, reflected in the mood of those attending the funeral of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei where demands for retribution were ubiquitous.

5 August
Trump Says Iran Talks Going Well as Hopes Rise for Hormuz Deal
(Bloomberg) Hopes rise for an interim deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A record El Niño threatens already fragile economies.
Iran Says It Is Nearing Final Agreement With Oman on Strait of Hormuz
The agreement on an acceptable route for ships to pass through the strait would effectively ratify Tehran’s control over the crucial waterway.
(NYT) Iran and Oman are close to finalizing an agreement on an acceptable route for ships to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said, according to state media reports on Wednesday.
The two countries, which sit on opposite sides of the strategic waterway, have been in talks to find a formula to reopen the strait. Iran effectively closed the strait, used to transport a significant quantity of the world’s oil and gas supplies, in retaliation for attacks by the United States and Israel this year.
Iranian officials have insisted they will not give up on some measure of control over the strait, which before the war was an open international waterway.

3 August
How Iran is widening its pressure campaign to force US concessions
By Samia Nakhoul, Global Foreign Policy Editor
Iran bets economic pain can succeed where military force cannot
Tehran believes Trump will yield under pressure, sources say
Iran sees ability to disrupt trade, energy as strongest asset
Conflict is becoming a contest of endurance
(Reuters) – Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East’s trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts.
Rather than seeking a ​decisive military victory, Tehran is pursuing a strategy of calibrated escalation aimed at widening the conflict without triggering full-scale war.

1-3 August
Iran Denies Peace Talks After the United States Cancels Military Strikes
Trump’s “imminent” deal remains elusive.
(Foreign Policy) Analysts believe that Iran is unlikely to capitulate unless the United States agrees to return to a June memorandum of understanding, which experts have described as largely in Iran’s favor. “They are ready for the war, and they won’t back down,” Amir al-Mousawi, a former Iranian diplomat who said he had met with Iran’s negotiating team over the weekend, told the New York Times on Monday.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi politician claimed on Monday that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi has recently ferried messages from Washington to Tehran as part of mediation efforts aimed at containing regional tensions and preventing the war’s further expansion.

Trump says talks with Iran under way but Tehran denies any planned
Contradictory statements cast doubt on diplomatic solution
Trump has repeatedly announced attacks only to back down
Analysts see Iran trying to outlast the U.S. by applying economic pain
Even so, financial markets respond positively to prospects for breakthrough
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that ​talks with Iran were under way, warning that it was a “last chance” for Tehran to sign a good deal to end the five-month-old war, but Iran denied ‌that any negotiations were being held or planned.
The contradictory statements suggest there is little prospect for a diplomatic resolution to the war anytime soon.
“They are going on right now,” Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event when asked about the state of negotiations, saying the sides were talking at the request of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, among others.

Trump says Mideast allies have reached outlines of deal to end Iran war, says US to stop new strikes
(AP) — President Donald Trump in a Saturday evening social media post claimed that Mideast allies have reached the parameters of a deal to end the Iran war and said that he would hold off on ordering new strikes in the five-month old conflict for now.
Trump added that the emerging deal “would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”
… He said that Israel has agreed to join the U.S. in the commitment to try to complete the agreement with Iran that would bring about an end to the war.