Donald Trump issued his most direct infrastructure threat yet against Iran on July 14, warning that US forces would target the country’s power plants and bridges within days unless Tehran returned to the negotiating table. The target of those negotiations: control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a significant portion of the world’s seaborne oil passes every single day.
US Central Command had already conducted dozens of airstrikes against Iranian missile and drone sites in the days surrounding the announcement, and the US reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports the same day Trump made his remarks on Fox News.
How we got here
The immediate trigger was a series of Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on July 6 and 7. Those attacks on tanker traffic effectively torched a June memorandum of understanding that had been quietly designed to prevent exactly this kind of escalation.
Iran’s decision to go after commercial shipping gave Washington its justification for the airstrikes that followed over multiple nights around July 13 and 14.
