Iran is intensifying confrontational actions against the United States in the hope of further raising the cost of the conflict for President Donald Trump less than two months ahead of the US midterm elections, analysts say.
Over half a year after the war erupted on February 28 with US-Israeli attacks that killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Iran is upping the ante, even risking a return to all-out fighting, rather than dialling down and looking into diplomacy.
Trump, under pressure to end the war as midterm elections loom on November 3, declared on Wednesday: "I think the war will end immediately after the election" because Iran "can't hold out any longer".
But even as the chain of command in Tehran remains nebulous with Khamenei's successor and son Mojtaba still yet to make a public appearance, the leadership has doubled down on the Islamic republic's traditional policy of confrontation with the United States.
Far from allowing the return of free shipping through the Strait of Hormuz -- a vital energy conduit that normally carries around a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas -- it has announced and then expanded a new prohibited zone in the area.
