Wall Street Journal
Iran launched a surprise ballistic-missile attack on American forces in Jordan, a U.S. official said, a violent escalation that puts new pressure on President Trump to renew the war in earnest.
The missiles were all successfully intercepted, the U.S. military said.
But the assault raised the prospect that American forces would have to respond, just as negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and eventually jump-start broader peace talks were picking up speed.
The assault marked a shift for Iran, which until now had only fired on U.S. forces in retaliation for American airstrikes on its own territory. With this recent unprompted missile attack, Iran showed it is willing to take the fight to the U.S. on its own terms in an attempt to force Trump’s hand.
Shortly after the Iranian strikes on Jordan, the American military said U.S. and Saudi jet fighters had launched strikes in Iraq on Tuesday against Iran-backed groups that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps previously directed to attack American troops and Saudi energy infrastructure. Those attacks against U.S. forces weren’t successful, U.S. Central Command said.
Hours before Iran’s barrage, Trump said Tuesday the U.S. would restart strikes against Iran if a ceasefire deal couldn’t be agreed upon.
‘They know I’m going to do that if they don’t make a deal,’ he told Fox & Friends on Tuesday. ‘The bridges will be gone, literally in less than—I would say in two hours, most of the bridges, the major bridges will all be gone, and the power plants in one day,’ he said.
He said Iran had agreed to give up its nuclear-weapons ambitions but needed to ‘make it formal,’ he said. ‘I just want very simply—they cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. And they’ve agreed to that. Essentially, we have to get them to make it formal.’
Iran launched the attack five months after the war began Feb. 28, when the U.S. and Israel began airstrikes that killed a swath of the Islamic Republic’s leadership, including its top ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The barrage capped several weeks of wobbly diplomacy, during which time the U.S. and Iran agreed in June to end hostilities.
But disputes over how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—through which 20% of global oil production flowed before the war—prompted Trump to order almost two weeks of airstrikes on Iran this month.
Trump paused those strikes Friday to give peace talks a chance. On Tuesday, Iran said it had rejected an Omani plan for resuming traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, pushing its own proposal that would give Tehran more control over shipping in the strategic waterway.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s latest attacks.
U.S. oil prices jumped 4% to more than $82 a barrel after news of the Iranian attack. Middle East analysts said the price of crude oil is an economic weapon that Iran has wielded effectively against the U.S., where high fuel prices have boosted inflation.
The latest strikes came after three U.S. soldiers died in an Iranian missile strike on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, Jordan, in mid-July. The missile barrage, one of three on the base in a 24-hour period, struck prefabricated housing units where troops lived and slept, The Wall Street Journal reported.
That three missiles were able to slip through the base’s defenses point to the challenges in protecting an estimated 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East from Iranian missiles and drones, which are still a deadly force even after months of U.S. airstrikes.
The Trump administration can’t afford ‘to let this surprise attack go unanswered,’ snarled Behnam Ben Taleblu of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. ‘For the United States, these attacks are not the costs of war, but rather the costs of unfinished business.’
‘Iran is striking the U.S. to show that it can take the initiative and take the fight to the U.S.,’ Danny Citrinowicz, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israel-based think tank, said in a post on X. Though Trump had paused airstrikes, the country’s rulers see a continued U.S. military blockade of its ports as an act of war that needs a response, he said.
‘Iranian leaders increasingly interpret Washington’s caution as a sign of hesitation and a lack of political will to sustain a prolonged confrontation,’ Citrinowicz said. ‘In Tehran’s assessment, that creates an opportunity to test American resolve.’
In recent weeks, the war’s footprint has expanded far beyond Iran and the Arab Persian Gulf states that Tehran has attacked in retaliation for American airstrikes.
Iran-backed militants in Yemen, the Houthis, have attacked Red Sea ships in an attempt to enforce a blockade of Saudi oil shipments, prompting Riyadh and its Yemeni allies to launch their own assaults.
Saudi Arabia said Tehran-supported militias have been firing drones on its oil fields and other infrastructure. Ukraine fired on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea that Kyiv said was transporting weapons for Russia. Iraqi officials have said Iran has fired on Kurdish positions in northern Iraq.