The previous U.S-Iran exchange had effectively stopped. Washington decided not to retaliate against Iran's last barrage and reports suggest Trump’s team is actively trying to avoid another major escalation before the midterms.
Iran attacked again anyway.
And to understand why, look at what Washington is doing behind the scenes.
The U.S is intensifying its economic campaign against Tehran, reportedly instructing embassies around the world to pressure governments to cut Iranian trade, with countries, companies and individuals potentially threatened with sanctions or a loss of access to the dollar system.
Meanwhile, the UAE has become an important partner in Washington's attempt to keep oil moving through Hormuz and tighten the economic screws on Iran.
Then Iran hits U.S-linked military infrastructure in the UAE and Kuwait.
That makes these strikes look less like retaliation for something America already did and more like a warning about what comes next:
If Washington turns the Gulf into the infrastructure for an economic war against Iran, Tehran may turn that same infrastructure into the battlefield.
And that creates a serious problem for Trump's apparent pivot from military war to economic war.
Sanctions were supposed to provide a way of squeezing Iran without another major exchange of missiles.
Iran may be signalling that it doesn't intend to let America separate the two.
@WeTheBrandon
