Sarah: The Hormuz blockade is back on — and U.S.
Sarah: and Iranian strikes are widening at the same time.
Sarah: If you're just joining, the Hormuz crisis had already moved past threats to shipping before this latest round of fighting. CENTCOM said U.S.
Sarah: unmanned surface vessels struck Iranian naval infrastructure at Bandar Abbas — the first American combat use of sea drones — in a campaign
Sarah: aimed at cutting Iran's ability to hit commercial traffic through the strait.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Today, Tehran tries to turn the blockade into law while six named targets go on the map and sea drones come off the leash.
Rich: And somehow, Rome.
Sarah: From France24:
Quote: US forces struck Iran and reimposed a naval blockade on its ports as Tehran hit Washington's Gulf allies on Wednesday
Quote: vowing the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed "until the US ends its aggression".
Rich: So Trump backs off the 20 percent levy on ships one hour, and the next hour there's a full naval blockade back on Iran's ports.
Rich: The toll booth idea's dead — they just closed the road instead.
Sarah: Let me pin down the sequence, per AFP: U.S.
Sarah: forces struck Iran and reimposed the blockade Wednesday.
Sarah: Tehran hit Washington's Gulf allies that same day.
Sarah: The Hormuz fight has moved from shipping levies into renewed strikes and retaliation.
Sarah: And there's a diplomatic casualty on the record: Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi says the blockade has "in a way dismantled the
Sarah: Islamabad memorandum."
Sarah: That's Tehran itself saying the MOU is wrecked, not us reading it in.
Rich: Then read the Guards' quote next to it — oil and gas from the region will be "available for everyone or for no one."
Rich: That's a threat to America's economic rivals as much as to Washington.
Rich: Beijing and Delhi are hearing that too.
Sarah: Euronews writes:
Quote: US strikes also hit the port city of Bushehr — which hosts Iran's only civilian nuclear power plant — with deputy provincial governor Ehsan
Quote: Jahanian saying "four points in the city of Bushehr were hit by enemy projectiles at noon," according to state-run news agency IRNA.
Quote: There was no immediate word on damage to the nuclear facility itself.
Sarah: Euronews has two things on the record as of Tuesday: four points hit inside Bushehr
Sarah: the port city that hosts Iran's only civilian nuclear power plant.
Sarah: Iran's parliament also formally submitted a bill asserting permanent control over the Strait of Hormuz.
Rich: Bushehr's the one that makes me sit up. You put U.S.
Rich: projectiles inside the city that houses Iran's only nuclear plant, and the margin for a very bad accident just narrowed to nothing.
Sarah: Just to be precise about what Euronews confirms — four points in the city, not the reactor itself.
Sarah: But you're right: the geography carries its own risk, no matter the aim point.
Rich: And the parliament bill — that's the part I'd underline.
Rich: Closing Hormuz stops being a commander's threat and becomes Iranian statute.
Rich: You can't quietly walk a statute back in a back-channel.
Sarah: This is coming from the Majlis, through a formal submission.
Sarah: That's a different order of commitment than a general at a podium
Sarah: and it's the clearest institutional answer to Trump's line that a deal existed two days ago.
Rich: Meanwhile Iran hit two ships in the strait Tuesday — one dead
Rich: eight hurt per Euronews — while Trump says Washington's 'taking control' of the waterway.
Rich: Both sides are claiming the same water.
Rich: Call it a collision course with paperwork.
Sarah: Here's Iran International:
Quote: US Central Command says it completed its latest five-hour wave of strikes against Iran at 10:15 p.m.
Quote: ET on Monday. According to CENTCOM
Quote: the operation targeted military sites in Bushehr
Quote: Chabahar Jask Konarak
Quote: Abu Musa and Bandar Abbas
Quote: with precision strikes against coastal defense systems
Quote: missile and drone sites
Quote: and other maritime capabilities.
Sarah: CENTCOM says the wave wrapped at 10:15 p.m.
Sarah: Eastern Monday — five hours, six named sites: Bushehr, Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, and Bandar Abbas.
Sarah: Coastal defense, missile and drone sites, maritime capabilities.
Sarah: What stands out is the geography.
Sarah: Every one of those targets sits on the coast or on an island — Abu Musa's the contested one — and CENTCOM's stated aim is Iran's ability to
Sarah: hit commercial shipping. Not inland.
Rich: Walk that map and it looks like strip-mining.
Rich: Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Bandar Abbas — the nodes that let Tehran reach into the Gulf and out to the Arabian Sea.
Rich: Gut those in one window and you're left asking what's physically left to threaten a tanker with.
Rich: And notice what set this off — per Iran International, the IRGC hit Oman's Duqm port Sunday, carrier refueling infrastructure.
Rich: Oman summoned Iran's ambassador.
Rich: Oman was the mediator everybody was counting on, and now it's condemning Tehran as 'irresponsible.'
Sarah: That's the piece I'd hold up.
Sarah: Muscat isn't a party to the shooting — it's the channel.
Sarah: If Oman's summoning the ambassador, the go-between just got pulled into the fight.
Sarah: AL-MONITOR, with Maya Gebeily and Alvise Armellini:
Quote: BEIRUT/ROME July 14 (Reuters) - Lebanon and Israel resumed talks on Tuesday in the Italian capital
Quote: with Beirut hoping for progress towards securing an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon under a U.S.-brokered agreement
Quote: although expectations for swift progress were low.
Quote: A U.S. State Department official said in a brief statement that the Rome talks were positive and would continue on Wednesday
Quote: adding that both sides were eager to move forward.
Rich: So while the U.S. is blockading Iranian ports and hitting Bushehr
Rich: there's a delegation sitting in a hotel in Rome trying to negotiate an Israeli pullout from south Lebanon.
Rich: This is the one table in the whole war that isn't on fire.
Sarah: Right — Lebanon and Israel resumed U.S.-brokered talks Tuesday
Sarah: and a State Department official called them positive and said they'd continue Wednesday.
Sarah: The diplomatic track is still moving alongside the shooting, not replacing it.
Sarah: And the sourcing matters here.
Sarah: That's a U.S. State Department line, plus Beirut's hopes — the official also kept expectations for swift progress low.
Sarah: So: talks are happening; no promised breakthrough.
Rich: Here's my problem. Lebanon's whole leverage is its patron.
Rich: Hezbollah's own position, per the reporting, is that only Iranian pressure on Washington ends the war.
Rich: And Iran is currently getting its coastline strip-mined.
Rich: So what exactly is the Lebanese delegation bargaining with?
Sarah: That's the seam. Iran demanded an end to the Lebanon war as part of its interim deal with Washington last month
Sarah: and the Gulf hostilities have strained that deal all week.
Sarah: Rome is now tied to a document the blockade is putting under real pressure.
Sarah: Here's what CBS News is reporting.
Rich: So CENTCOM's confirming the sea drones weren't a one-off at the sub base — unmanned surface vessels hit coastal defenses across the whole
Rich: wave. First time in combat, per CBS.
Sarah: That's the specific claim: CBS says CENTCOM identified unmanned surface vessels in the strike on the Bandar Abbas naval base.
Sarah: The platform matters here.
Sarah: It's a capability threshold, separate from the strike count itself.
Rich: And it's a cheap capability.
Rich: You don't need to risk a destroyer or a pilot to gut Iran's ability to threaten shipping — you float a robot boat into a naval base.
Rich: That math changes how often Washington reaches for this.
Sarah: It also changes what Iran can retaliate against.
Sarah: There's no crew to capture, no downed airman.
Sarah: The escalation calculus on the other side gets murkier when the thing you hit is a machine.
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Host: Next, we’re watching Wednesday’s continuation of the Rome talks on implementing the Lebanon-Israel framework deal.
Host: You’ll find links to every story from today’s briefing in the show notes, if you want to dig deeper into anything we covered.
Host: That’s Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.