Sarah: Oil crosses a hundred dollars, Tehran turns down a ceasefire by name, and the war just moved out onto the water.
Sarah: If you're just joining us: even before this round, the shipping war had spread beyond the Strait of Hormuz.
Sarah: Iranian pressure there was disrupting oil flows, U.S.
Sarah: threats were aimed at Iranian infrastructure, and Houthi threats around Bab el-Mandeb were forcing tanker diversions.
Sarah: The question was whether that maritime pressure would stay a bargaining lever — or turn into a second front.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Today, a rejected Baghdad deal, the IAEA pointing at Isfahan, and an insurance market saying what the podium won't.
Sarah: We start with the ceasefire track: what exactly collapsed, and who Baghdad was speaking for.
Rich: We'll keep tracking Hormuz-to-Red Sea maritime escalation — follow the show so the next update finds you.
Sarah: Elena Becatoros, Fatma Khaled and Collin Binkley, writing in ABC13:
Quote: The U.S. military announced Thursday that it is conducting the 13th night of strikes against Iran as clashes escalate over shipping routes.
Quote: Earlier Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea
Quote: potentially widening the Iran war as international oil topped $100 a barrel.
Rich: One hundred dollars a barrel.
Rich: First time since May, and it printed the second the Houthis claimed two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea.
Rich: The market doesn't care about strike counts — it cares that oil can't get out.
Sarah: And that's a Houthi claim, Rich: two Saudi tankers, based on their own statement, with no second source yet.
Sarah: What we can stand behind comes from CENTCOM.
Sarah: It says this is the 13th night of strikes on Iran, meant to, quote, degrade Iran's ability to threaten commercial vessels.
Rich: Thirteen nights to, what, reopen Hormuz?
Rich: A fifth of the world's oil moved through that strait in peacetime, and now the Houthis are threatening a second chokepoint.
Rich: The whole seaborne exit from the Gulf is under pressure at once.
Sarah: The maritime front just widened from Hormuz to the Red Sea.
Sarah: CENTCOM confirms night thirteen is under way.
Sarah: I'd keep Tehran and the Houthis on separate ledgers there, though.
Sarah: Iran closed Hormuz; the Red Sea claim is coming from Sanaa.
Rich: Separate flags, same result at the pump.
Rich: Washington calls it 'restoring the flow of international shipping.'
Rich: The tape calls it a hundred bucks and climbing.
Sarah: Ariella Roitman at The Jerusalem Post is tracking this.
Sarah: Tehran has now rejected the Iraqi-led ceasefire deal by name, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Sarah: That matters because it's the first specific mediation framework a party has publicly turned down, instead of just letting it stall.
Rich: And Baghdad was the one back-channel that wasn't Washington or Doha.
Rich: Iraq actually had standing with both sides — and Iran just buried the deal with Iraq's name stapled to it.
Sarah: We should be precise about authority
Sarah: though: what exactly was Baghdad carrying
Sarah: and was it Iraq's own initiative or Washington's message in an Iraqi envelope?
Sarah: The Post calls it an Iraqi-led US deal.
Sarah: Those are two different things.
Rich: Either way, who in Baghdad takes the hit for this?
Rich: If you put your credibility on a framework Tehran publicly kills
Rich: that's a cost — and it lands after we already heard the US say it's launching strikes over the shipping lanes. Talking's done.
Sarah: I'd only call this framework dead.
Sarah: The broader track could still survive.
Sarah: But Rubio says Iran isn't ready for a deal, and that gives us firmer evidence that Iran's principals stayed home for a reason.
Rich: Rubio says they're not ready for a deal.
Rich: There's no mechanism left on the table, and now we have a named rejection on the record.
Rich: Call it what it is — the diplomatic phase closed this week.
Rich: Baghdad was the last venue with a pulse.
Sarah: From Al Jazeera:
Quote: The United Nations nuclear watchdog has said in a report that Iran has stored most of its highly enriched uranium at an underground tunnel
Quote: complex at its Isfahan facility
Quote: urging Tehran to allow inspections as it faces growing pressure from the United States over its nuclear programme.
Sarah: The IAEA report circulated to members Friday puts most of Iran's highly enriched uranium at one place: an underground tunnel complex at
Sarah: Isfahan. And they're enriching to 60 percent there — a short step from weapons-grade.
Sarah: Keep the focus on Isfahan here.
Sarah: This is one of the three sites Washington said it obliterated in last year's twelve-day war — and the IAEA says it still can't get
Sarah: inspectors in.
Rich: Obliterated. And yet the watchdog's writing reports about the uranium that's supposedly still sitting under it.
Rich: Somebody oversold that airstrike.
Rich: And 'urges' — that's the whole enforcement toolkit?
Rich: The agency knows the material's there
Rich: doesn't know where a fourth enrichment site even is
Rich: and all it can do is politely ask Tehran to open the door.
Sarah: That's the gap, Rich.
Sarah: The report confirms 60 percent and names the site, but the agency can only request access.
Sarah: It can't mandate it — especially the day after Tehran walked away from the Iraqi ceasefire we just covered.
Rich: Right. A country that just buried a mediation deal is going to roll out the welcome mat for inspectors. Sure.
Sarah: Al Jazeera, with Sarah Shamim:
Quote: Maritime insurance prices have soared amid shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and are also rising for vessels traversing the Bab
Quote: al-Mandeb strait with both waterways – critical channels for the global economy – now theatres of war.
Quote: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group announced a blockade of Saudi Arabian ports and ships in the Bab al-Mandeb strait
Quote: which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean earlier this week.
Rich: Finally, the numbers I've been chasing all week: insurance rates for both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, and Al Jazeera has them climbing.
Rich: Both straits at once.
Rich: In one story, the Gulf's whole seaborne exit looks compromised.
Sarah: And note who's claiming what.
Sarah: The IRGC said Thursday that an explosion set a tanker ablaze off Oman
Sarah: two more vessels turned back
Sarah: and all three were acting under US orders.
Sarah: That's Tehran's account, carried by Iranian media — one source, one side.
Rich: Sarah, the underwriters don't care whose account it is.
Rich: They're pricing the risk either way.
Rich: When Lloyd's reprices every hull through two chokepoints simultaneously
Rich: that's the market saying the war is real regardless of who's lying about the tanker.
Sarah: Fair — but keep the actors distinct.
Sarah: The Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi ports in Bab al-Mandeb this week, while Tehran wants ships consulting it in Hormuz.
Sarah: Washington, meanwhile, is running a naval blockade of Iran-linked vessels in a third waterway.
Sarah: They may feed the same insurance spike, but they're three separate operations.
Rich: Right, and every one of them ends at the same pump.
Rich: Oil crossed a hundred dollars a barrel on exactly this.
Rich: The seaborne siege is already being paid for, in real time, by anybody who buys fuel.
Sarah: Here's The National:
Quote: Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed doubt about Tehran's readiness to negotiate
Quote: citing a history of violating agreements after they are reached.
Quote: Iran's Revolutionary Guard claimed strikes on US military facilities in Kuwait and Jordan
Quote: targeting air defence systems
Quote: drones and infrastructure.
Rich: Rubio says Iran's 'paying a price every single night' — twelfth consecutive night now.
Rich: Fine. But he's also the one who said you can't make a deal with people who won't keep it
Rich: right after Tehran buried the Iraqi channel we just covered.
Sarah: Careful with the sequencing, Rich.
Sarah: Rubio's 'not ready for a deal' line is via The National — and remember
Sarah: mediators had a roadmap for both sides and open lines out of Switzerland.
Sarah: So which one is real: the Swiss paper or Rubio's doubt?
Rich: The Swiss thing was a promissory note.
Rich: Rubio just told you the check bounces.
Sarah: I'd be careful with his claim that internal divisions in Tehran are complicating their decisions — that's Rubio's read
Sarah: and it isn't confirmed.
Sarah: The IRGC answered him anyway, claiming strikes on US facilities in Kuwait and Jordan.
Sarah: Jordan says it downed four missiles and six drones in 24 hours.
Rich: Spare me 'paying the price.'
Rich: Kuwait and Jordan are intercepting Iranian drones over their own airspace — and Tehran isn't the only one stuck with that bill.
Host: Have feedback, story ideas, or corrections?
Host: Email us at iranwardaily at lantern podcasts dot com.
Host: We'd like to hear from you.
Host: You'll find links to every story in today's briefing in the show notes.
Host: If something caught your attention, head there to read more.
Host: That's Iran War Daily for Friday, July 24.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.