Sarah: Tonight: the strait the bases
Sarah: and the bargaining table all catch fire at once — Iran hits three Gulf capitals
Sarah: the US strikes for a second straight night and oil jumps.
Sarah: If you're just joining us: the Hormuz crisis started with Iran moving to control tanker traffic through service fees and attacks around the
Sarah: strait then widened into direct U.S.-Iran exchanges.
Sarah: By our last edition Washington had struck Iranian coastal sites
Sarah: Tehran was claiming attacks on U.S.-used Gulf bases
Sarah: and mediators were scrambling to keep the June 17 U.S.-Iran memorandum from collapsing.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Bahrain Kuwait and Jordan in the blast radius
Rich: sanctions and strikes in the same breath
Rich: and Tehran saying no more talks — we'll get into who's actually paying for all of it.
Sarah: This one's from CNN:
Quote: US allies Bahrain Kuwait and Jordan all reported responding to aerial threats on Monday morning local time
Quote: after Iran said it was launching strikes across the region in response to US attacks on its territory.
Sarah: Here's the latest on the Hormuz-to-Red Sea escalation: a second night of US and Iranian strikes has now pulled Bahrain
Sarah: Kuwait and Jordan into air-defense mode.
Sarah: Per CNN the US military says it hit dozens of Iranian military targets
Sarah: and Iranian state media says its forces are responding with a fresh wave toward US bases.
Sarah: And I want to get the geography exact — sirens in Bahrain
Sarah: Kuwait reporting hostile aerial targets
Sarah: and Jordan's military says it intercepted four Iranian missiles.
Sarah: That's three US-allied capitals, none of them signatories to the MOU.
Rich: Jordan intercepting four missiles it says came from Tehran — a capital that didn't sign anything is catching the blast radius of a deal it
Rich: had no hand in. Who's paying the air-defense bill in Manama and Kuwait City tonight?
Rich: And CNN's got Brent up over 3 percent on Sunday.
Rich: That's the street telling you exactly what a second night of strikes is worth — the interim deal brought prices down for a minute
Rich: and this just handed it back.
Sarah: Here's the timing that sharpens it, Rich — CNN notes we're near the halfway mark of that 60-day negotiating window.
Sarah: So the strikes are landing in the most sensitive stretch of the diplomacy, not before it, not after.
Sarah: Al Jazeera writes:
Quote: Oil prices jumped more than 4 percent after the latest flare-up between the United States and Iran that threatened their already fragile
Quote: truce. Both main oil contracts
Quote: which have tumbled since the announcement of an interim agreement
Quote: spiked as much as 4.5 percent
Quote: fanning concerns that inflation – already elevated because of the war – could force central banks to hike interest rates.
Rich: Oil up as much as 4.5 percent on the day.
Rich: Same contracts that had been tumbling ever since somebody announced an interim agreement — so the market just marked that agreement to zero
Rich: overnight.
Sarah: Put two numbers next to each other, per Al Jazeera.
Sarah: The interim announcement pulled crude down measurably.
Sarah: This second night of strikes put as much as 4.5 percent back on.
Sarah: You can see the market price the deal in, then price in the risk of it breaking.
Rich: And Tehran is hitting Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan — three US-allied capitals outside the deal, but inside the blast radius.
Rich: Who's picking up the air-defense bill in Manama tonight?
Sarah: Jordan is the one that jumps out to me — Bahrain and Kuwait were on the confirmed list already.
Sarah: Amman being drawn in tells you something about which coalition Tehran is now willing to antagonize.
Sarah: Here's Parisa Hafezi and Steve Holland at Al-Monitor:
Quote: Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and his Omani counterpart on Saturday discussed arrangements for the safe passage of ships through the
Quote: Strait of Hormuz as Washington seeks a public pledge of free secure transit.
Sarah: Reuters has Araqchi in Oman on Saturday
Sarah: talking safe passage through Hormuz with his Omani counterpart Badr Albusaidi — and Washington's ask is specific: a public pledge of free
Sarah: secure transit through the strait.
Sarah: The sequencing matters.
Sarah: Trump declared the ceasefire over on Friday
Sarah: yet the same Iranian source tells Reuters that Iran
Sarah: the US Qatar and Pakistan agreed to negotiate.
Sarah: So the diplomatic channel and the strike track are both live at once.
Rich: Free, secure transit — sure.
Rich: And later in the show you'll hear Tehran's price for that pledge, because they didn't come to Oman to hand it over for nothing.
Rich: Here's what caught my eye — Reuters says no attacks were reported Friday or Saturday.
Rich: Two nights of strikes, then quiet, then talks in Muscat.
Rich: Call it a pause while somebody prices the strait.
Sarah: And note who's mediating: Qatar and Pakistan on the call, Oman hosting the room.
Sarah: The Gulf states doing the shuttle work are in the same neighborhood absorbing the blast this week.
Sarah: This one's from The Economic Times:
Quote: The United States has imposed new sanctions on Iran's financial networks.
Quote: These sanctions target a key financier for Mojtaba Khamenei and other individuals.
Quote: This action follows recent attacks on commercial oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
Quote: The United States aims to disrupt Iran's access to foreign currency and international finance.
Rich: So while missiles are flying over the strait for a second night
Rich: Treasury drops sanctions on 14 names — a financier for Mojtaba Khamenei and 13 others
Rich: per Reuters. Timing's cute.
Sarah: Let me be exact on who's targeted: the lead designation hits a money man tied to Mojtaba Khamenei — the designated successor to the late
Sarah: Supreme Leader per The Economic Times.
Sarah: So this reaches into Iran's succession fight, not just its oil revenue.
Rich: Right, and it lands the same week Washington is at the table asking Iran for free access through Hormuz — the piece we just hit.
Rich: You're squeezing the man's inner circle with one hand and asking him to open the strait with the other.
Sarah: Same government, same news cycle: Treasury pressure, plus a diplomatic ask.
Sarah: Neither Treasury nor the negotiators have explained how those fit together out loud
Sarah: and the sanctions cite the tanker attacks as the trigger.
Rich: And here's what nobody at the podium prices: cut a financier off from foreign currency, fine — but who's actually paying?
Rich: Iran's crude buyers in Beijing, that's who, and that barrel just got more expensive to move.
Sarah: Here's Arsalan Shahla and Jeff Mason at Business Standard:
Quote: The comments came hours after the US demanded that Iran publicly declare all channels of the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping and pledge
Quote: not to attack civilian vessels transiting the waterway
Rich: So Tehran's answer is on the record now — no talks until Hormuz access and oil exports are on the table, per Business Standard.
Rich: They put a price tag on getting back in the room.
Sarah: And let's name the source precisely — this is Iran stating conditions, not a mediator characterizing them.
Sarah: Araqchi was gesturing at this last week without a deadline; now it's Hormuz and exports, spelled out.
Rich: Which lands the same day Washington's demanding free strait access in the Al-Monitor piece we just hit and rolling out fresh sanctions.
Rich: Those two levers are yanking in opposite directions — you can't sanction a man's oil and ask him to keep the tap open for you.
Sarah: Same government, same news cycle, and nobody's reconciling it.
Sarah: Treasury is squeezing while negotiators are asking — and Tehran just told you which message it's answering.
Rich: And Beijing's holding the discounted barrel that fresh sanctions just made pricier.
Rich: Whatever this refusal costs, Iran's biggest customer is helping foot it.
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Host: What we’re watching next: Omani and Iranian negotiators are expected to keep going with technical and political-level talks on safe passage
Host: through the Strait of Hormuz.
Host: You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, if you want to go deeper on any of them.
Host: That’s Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.