July 20, 2026

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The U.S.-Iran War Escalates and Expands Horizontally

(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

The declaration by U.S. and Iranian officials that their June Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has collapsed has led not only to a revival but to a major expansion of the war. Each side has begun to violate the other’s red lines, and regional mediators have fallen back to escalation management rather than de-escalation and war termination. Insisting it wants to drive Iran back to the negotiating table, the U.S. has begun to increase strategic pressure on Iran by striking civilian infrastructure targets, in particular the bridges and roads that connect Iran’s Persian Gulf coastal cities to Iran’s core. Uncertain of its ability to strike U.S. warships and other forces in the region, Iran is expanding its defense effort horizontally by directing its allies to fight on its behalf and by renewing strikes on Arab Gulf state infrastructure.

Iranian regime leaders view the post-ceasefire U.S. escalatory pattern as an existential threat to their grip on power, and Iran’s responses are now limited only by capability, not by intent. Committed to retaining effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran concluded that proportional, tit-for-tat exchanges with the U.S. are not deterring Washington. Last week, veteran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Mohsen Rezai, the IRGC’s commander-in-chief during the Iran-Iraq War and now the military advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, presented the hardline Iranian position. He told state media: "If, in the next 2-3 days, the United States continues the war, we will move to the stage of ‘total offensive and complete destruction’… If this strategy is implemented, we will no longer limit ourselves to retaliatory strikes, and no political boundary will be able to provide security against the offensive forces of Iran…Implementing this strategy will lead to the activation of all international fault lines." He did not, however, characterize the nature of any Iranian “offensive” activity or explain the Iranian capabilities available to take the offensive.

Last week, Iranian leaders acted on their threats to expand the war in response to U.S. escalation by “green-lighting” the Houthis in Yemen to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. That strait does not carry the percentage of global energy exports that the Strait of Hormuz does and can be bypassed (although at greater time and expense). But when added to the dramatic decline in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, action by the Houthis, if implemented, would greatly compound the upward pressure on world oil prices and threaten the global economy. Yet the Houthis, although aligned strategically with Iran, look to their own leadership for decision-making during crises. Sources from Reuters news agency said the group had deployed missiles and drones near the Red Sea waterway and that the group was awaiting an order to begin attacking shipping. However, despite some reported attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea last week, it appears the group has stopped short, for now, of trying to close the waterway. The Houthi leadership appears to be calibrating its actions to avoid a full-scale revival of its 2015-2022 war against Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The potential Houthis' entry into the war also reflects heightened tensions with Saudi Arabia, a longtime nemesis of both Tehran and the Houthis. Earlier this month, the Kingdom bombed the Sanaa airport to try to prevent the return of Houthi officials from the funeral of assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i. Saudi officials claimed the passengers on the aircraft included Houthi fighters tapped to undergo training in Iran, along with senior political figures. The Houthis retaliated by firing missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia's southwestern city of Abha. A return to war between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis would not only add to Yemen’s humanitarian crisis but also shake the Saudi economy, which is already navigating the Iran war.

As a show of support for its Yemeni allies — and expanding its defense effort to all corners of the region — Iran last week conducted a missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base (PSAB). U.S. air and other assets have used that base since the early 1990s, including for operations against Iran. The missile barrage represented the first reported Iranian attack on a U.S. facility in Saudi Arabia since the April U.S.-Iran ceasefire and signaled that no Arab Gulf state will avoid Iranian retaliation for U.S. strikes. During the same week, the IRGC targeted U.S. drone facilities and an artificial intelligence center in Bahrain, allegedly used to support U.S. targeting operations. On Friday, Iran escalated significantly by attacking and damaging a Kuwait desalination plant as well as a power plant, according to Kuwaiti authorities. Kuwait depends on such plants for 90 percent of its water supply, in comparison to Iran’s 2-3 percent dependency on desalination.

Kuwait’s government has attributed most of the attacks on its facilities to Iran-aligned militias in Iraq, acting at the behest of Tehran. The frequency and apparent precision of some of the attacks on Kuwait, including several in recent weeks on U.S. bases there, a police academy, and border posts, suggest Iran has harnessed its Iraqi allies to its defense effort. The Iraq-based attacks on Kuwait have upended the Baghdad government’s attempts to remain neutral in the U.S.-Iran conflict, a stance discussed between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and President Trump during Zaidi’s official visit to the U.S. last week.

However, the Iranian and Iran-backed attacks on the Gulf states have not, to date, caused the Gulf states to openly break with the Trump team or, as Tehran has demanded, close the U.S. bases in the Gulf. Iran’s military and diplomatic messaging has yet to convince the Gulf states that U.S. bases are a liability and not an asset. Regional leaders have instead questioned Iran’s stated rationale for the attacks — that it is striking only U.S. bases in the Gulf and not the Gulf states themselves. On Friday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi seemed to confirm the Gulf leaders’ more critical interpretation by telling journalists: “We are bombing our neighbors to pressure America into stopping its strikes on us.” Gulf officials add that Tehran is firing on the Gulf states because they are within easy reach and are unlikely to retaliate with their own strikes. However, the UAE — which has argued for confronting Iran — has apparently been willing to enter the war against Iran directly. Last week, it reportedly launched its Yabhon loitering “kamikaze drone” at Bandar Abbas in its first known use of the weapon in the conflict. Other attacks on Iranian targets — for which the U.S. denied responsibility — reportedly have been conducted by the UAE, as well as by Bahrain.

Iran has carried out its counter-offensive beyond the Gulf states. On Friday, a barrage of Iranian missiles struck the Muwaffaq Salti base in Jordan, killing two U.S. military personnel. Another is missing, and four were seriously wounded. The strike called into question the effectiveness of the U.S. redeployment of some of its forces from bases in the Gulf to locations further from Iranian territory. The strike also seemed to corroborate published estimates that Iran retains significant, and increasingly lethal, missile assets, despite the many U.S. attacks on those systems since the war began.

The previous day, Iran announced an attack on the al-Tanf base in eastern Syria, which was manned until early this year by U.S. forces combatting the Islamic State organization (ISIS). Some of Damascus’s forces might still occupy the facility. However, U.S. and Syrian officials deny there was an attack on the facility. Coming days after Syria intercepted a shipment of Iranian arms bound for Lebanese Hezbollah, analysts interpreted the Iranian-claimed strike as a warning to the Syrian government not to intervene in Lebanon against Hezbollah. Experts question why Tehran has exempted Israel from its recent retaliatory attacks. Observers speculate that the IRGC does not want Israel’s Air Force to re-enter the battle and add pressure on Iranian forces. Israeli officials say they are preparing to re-enter the war if Trump gives his approval to do so.

Whereas Iran is expanding the war horizontally, U.S. leaders are escalating vertically. Since declaring the ceasefire and the June Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) no longer applicable, Trump has directed U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) to expand its target set to civilian infrastructure. The post-ceasefire U.S. campaign is attempting to weaken Iran's control of its side of the Persian Gulf by attacking the road and rail transport that connects the southern coast, particularly the key Iranian naval hub in Bandar Abbas, to the core of the country. However, U.S forces have also reportedly struck some desalination plants and energy infrastructure targets that have no military applications. Experts assess that the U.S. military is seeking to deprive Iranian missile and drone forces of resupply and reduce their ability to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. However, some Iranian analysts interpret these strikes as “shaping operations” to prepare for a future U.S ground operation to occupy Iran’s side of the Strait. No sources report that a U.S. ground operation is imminent, and available reports suggest that President Trump has repeatedly rejected options presented to him that involve inserting ground troops into Iranian territory. At the same time, there appear to be few, if any, palatable options to drive Iran back to negotiations and restore the pathway to permanent de-escalation.