US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Tuesday would mark the “most intense day” of American strikes on Iran since the war began, featuring “the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes.”
However, even as the campaign intensifies, Trump signaled he may be open to diplomacy. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, he said, “I’m hearing they want to talk badly.” He described renewed talks as “possible,” but added he is “not happy” with Iran’s choice of new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, who was selected Sunday to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the war. Trump had previously demanded a say in who assumes the role.
On Monday evening, Trump warned the United States would strike Iran “twenty times harder” if the Islamic Republic interferes with oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the vital waterway — through which about 20% of the world’s oil passes — closed earlier this month.
Ship-tracking site MarineTraffic showed a handful of vessels moving through the Strait Tuesday but said traffic had plunged 90% since the war started, leaving hundreds of ships stranded nearby.
Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser warned on Tuesday that there would be “catastrophic consequences” for global oil markets if disruptions continue.
Iranian officials have also upped the saber-rattling. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf dismissed the possibility of a ceasefire Tuesday, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency, and addressed Trump in a post on X. "Be careful not to get eliminated yourself,” he wrote.
In another post the same day, top security official Ali Larijani warned that Hormuz “will either be a strait of peace and prosperity for all or will be a strait of defeat and suffering for warmongers.”
