There is no shortage of indicators suggesting that the pace of military escalation between the United States and Iran is likely to increase, while Israel remains largely outside the direct confrontation.
Tehran continues to prefer striking Gulf states on the grounds that its response to US aggression should target places within Iran’s reach, particularly neighbouring Arab countries where the United States maintains permanent military bases.
Iran appears to reserve direct attacks on Israel for situations in which the Israeli state enters the war or when Tehran judges that Israeli attacks on Lebanon have reached a level requiring Iranian intervention.
By contrast, Iran’s non-Arab neighbours, including Türkiye and Azerbaijan, where the United States also maintains significant military facilities, have largely remained beyond the reach of Iranian missiles and drones. One of the most prominent such facilities is Incirlik Air Base in Adana, southern Türkiye. Only two or three Iranian missiles or drones have reached these areas since the war began on 28 February.
Since US President Donald Trump announced on 8 July the end of the ceasefire and the resumption of nightly strikes on Iran, while formally notifying Congress, the intensity of US bombardment has gradually increased.
According to statements by US Central Command, CENTCOM, the attacks over the past two nights have lasted for five consecutive hours.
The geographical scope of the strikes has also expanded progressively. On Monday night into Tuesday, US attacks targeted a large number of areas overlooking the Gulf in southern and western Iran, including Bushehr, Chabahar, Jask, Konarak, Abu Musa, Bandar Abbas, Abadan and Mahshahr, as well as the islands of Kish and Qeshm.
Four Signs Pointing Towards Escalation
A second indication is the resumption of the US blockade of Iranian ports, which officially begins at 8 pm GMT on Tuesday.
This suggests that the situation is moving towards further escalation, although that escalation remains controlled for now.
There is no guarantee it will remain so.
Events could spiral out of control through an official decision by either of the warring parties, or even without one, particularly given growing questions about how centralised decision-making currently is in Tehran.
Although there are numerous signs of divisions among different wings of power in Iran, their precise extent remains difficult to determine.
Western sources, particularly American ones, suggest that the internal rupture may be extremely serious.
In this context, an official told US media outlets, including Axios and Politico, last Saturday that Tehran had informed Washington that the latest attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz had been carried out by “an undisciplined actor within its system”.
Another official said: “It appears that a power struggle is unfolding before our eyes between Iran’s hardline conservatives and the pragmatists.”
A third sign that escalation is more likely than de-escalation came from Israel’s Channel 12, which reported on Tuesday that the US military had decided to freeze plans to evacuate military refuelling aircraft stationed at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv.
Washington had reportedly planned to remove dozens of military aircraft from the airport on the assumption that the situation was heading towards de-escalation following the US-Iran memorandum of understanding last month.
Instead, four additional aircraft were deployed, according to a letter sent by Israel Airports Authority Director-General Sharon Kedmi to Transport Ministry officials.
The continued presence of these aircraft in Israel, and particularly the increase in their number, is being viewed as part of preparations for renewed military escalation.
A fourth indication came from Trump’s decision to introduce an additional source of tension by imposing a transit fee equivalent to 20 per cent of the cargo carried by ships and tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Before Trump’s announcement, the dispute over Hormuz essentially involved two sides.
Iran was seeking to impose charges that were widely regarded internationally as unlawful, while most of the world insisted on freedom of navigation through the strait without payment.
Now, however, the confrontation involves two parties that both want the strait to become a highly lucrative source of revenue.
Open-source estimates suggest that before the war, between 100 and 140 ships and tankers passed through the Strait of Hormuz each day.
Using an extremely rough calculation, Iran could potentially generate around US$200 million a day if it successfully imposed its proposed charges, at roughly US$2 million per ship or tanker.
Washington could collect significantly more if Trump’s ambitious proposal succeeded.
The global economy, however, would struggle to absorb the cost, as such a policy could trigger a major new wave of inflation.
Two Reasons for Hope of De-escalation
Against this bleak picture, two factors offer some hope that tensions could still ease.
The first is Iran’s exhaustion, particularly economically.
Although many hardline Iranian officials are currently adopting behaviour and rhetoric that some might describe as “suicidal”, the need for revenue remains a priority for a country already under blockade and suffering enormous losses because of the war.
A renewed full-scale conflict would be an economic catastrophe for Iran more than for any other country.
The profits from the 80 million barrels of oil Tehran says it has sold since the end of the war would compensate for only a small portion of its wider losses.
For this reason, although Iran’s leadership has no desire whatsoever for a return to full-scale war, its current governing establishment is also unwilling to make concessions.
It is therefore likely to prefer keeping the war geographically limited to parts of southern and western Iran, regarding that as a comparatively less costly option than an all-out conflict.
The second source of hope lies in continuing hints from Tehran that Qatari-Pakistani mediation remains alive, even though there have been no recent reports, public statements or visible meetings connected to those efforts.
Trump has also continued to make periodic remarks suggesting that an agreement remains possible.
However, such statements carry limited weight because they have been repeated many times before and have often been accompanied by military actions pointing in the opposite direction.
The death of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa is expected to delay Qatari mediation efforts until after the official mourning period ends on Wednesday.
Even so, many parties are expected to support renewed mediation more strongly than ever following Trump’s surprise announcement of substantial fees on ships passing through Hormuz.
Gulf states in particular, and the wider region more broadly, fear a return to full-scale war.
The previous fighting has already inflicted enormous economic losses whose effects are unlikely to disappear for years, even if the war were to end immediately.
Preventing another eruption of comprehensive war has therefore become a global concern rather than merely a regional one.
That reality could increase pressure on both sides to prevent the confrontation from spiralling further.
