Iran launched a remarkable military operation over the weekend, striking targets in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Israel simultaneously while threatening to push global oil prices to $200 per barrel. The scale of the operation sent crude prices above $100 per barrel and alarmed governments from Washington to Beijing.
The strikes came in response to Israeli attacks on oil storage facilities in and around Tehran, which killed four workers and left the Iranian capital cloaked in thick, black smoke. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were explicit in their intent: Gulf states that allowed their territory to be used against Iran would face the same treatment as Iran’s oil infrastructure had received from Israel.
Saudi Arabia’s air defenses intercepted 15 drones in a single day. Bahrain’s desalination plant was hit. Two people were killed in a residential strike in Saudi Arabia. A US service member — the seventh American to die in the conflict — succumbed to wounds sustained in an Iranian attack on US forces stationed in the kingdom.
Iran’s clerical assembly added political drama by appointing Mojtaba Khamenei as the country’s new supreme leader. His selection, the first hereditary transfer of Iran’s highest office, was described as a decisive vote by the assembly, though it drew swift international condemnation and raised deep questions about the direction of Iranian foreign policy.
The United States sought to limit the damage, pledging not to target Iranian oil infrastructure and expressing confidence that supply disruptions would be temporary. But with Iran striking five countries in a single weekend and oil prices climbing rapidly, the optimistic projections from Washington were being tested against a very different reality on the ground.
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