Faced with the joint US-Israeli assult, Iran’s strategy has been to retaliate against Washington’s allies in the Persian Gulf. It’s attacked energy infrastructure, wreaking havoc with oil markets, and halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, sending shocks through the global economy.
This week’s Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field — an escalation that prompted the Islamic Republic to inflict severe damage to an LNG hub in Qatar in response — might just have jolted all sides in the conflict into dialing back the scope and destructive potential of the war.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that the US was mulling removing sanctions from some Iranian oil to ease prices.
If it happens, it would be an extraordinary intervention, effectively reversing a policy that’s been at the center of President Donald Trump’s strategy since he first entered office and ripped up the nuclear deal with Tehran.
Iran’s oil exports have been sanctioned for more than a decade, but the strongest measures came in 2019 during Trump’s first term. Bessent said the policy would apply to Iranian crude that’s already on the water.
Tehran has yet to respond and it’s not clear whether it will have any impact on the actual war, or on its tactics.
Still, in a post on X, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran’s response to the South Pars strike used a “FRACTION of our power,” and “the ONLY reason for restraint was respect for requested de-escalation.”
Late yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had “acted alone” in striking the giant gas field, and will no longer target energy infrastructure.
Whether all this represents a tactic of “escalate to de-escalate” may now depend on what Israel and the US choose to strike next — and how much further Iran is willing to punish Trump’s Gulf-Arab partners. — Golnar Motevalli