U.S. military forces resumed attacking Iran on Wednesday night—just five days after the president had called the bombing off.
Donald Trump, 80, had spent the morning promising retribution against the Islamist regime for the barrage of missiles it had fired at an American base in Jordan the night before. U.S. Central Command said it had brought each one of those missiles down.
The president told Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst on a call that U.S. military forces would “beat the f–--ing s–-t out of them” in response. “We’ll be hitting them hard,” he went on. “They’re going to get a beating.”
That retaliation came at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Central Command announced it had completed a “heavy wave” of attacks against targets in the country. Iranian state media reported explosions in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas and on the islands of Kish and Qeshm in the Persian Gulf. A couple and their two-year-old child are understood to have been killed.
Trump had said only on Monday that he had ordered U.S. military forces to quit bombing Iran last Friday because regime officials “wanted to talk.” Iran denied that account, insisting it is no longer interested in negotiations with the U.S. about how to end the conflict Trump started on Feb. 28.
The president has repeatedly insisted his war with Tehran would last only a few weeks. The conflict has now entered its sixth month, with no lasting end to hostilities in sight, despite Trump signing a memorandum of understanding with the regime in June that lasted just 21 days.
The memorandum saw Iran promise to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway in the Persian Gulf that transports roughly a fifth of global oil supply annually. Its closure throughout the conflict has sent fuel prices skyrocketing, with voters consistently ranking pain at the pump as one of their chief concerns ahead of the November midterm elections.
The U.S. pledged in exchange to lift sanctions, unfreeze assets, and underwrite billions of dollars in reconstruction. Even Republicans balked at the terms of the deal, which Trump signed on June 17 at Versailles, a venue in France long synonymous with national humiliation.
The ceasefire was meant as a temporary measure while negotiators hammered out the terms of a lasting peace. It did not hold. Iran resumed its attacks on vessels in the strait early this month, and by July 8, Trump was telling a NATO summit in Turkey that the ceasefire is now “over.”
Things have only escalated in the weeks since. Tehran’s barrage of strikes against U.S. targets in Jordan on Monday night sent a clear riposte to Trump after he had called off any further attacks on Thursday, blowing apart his repeated claims that the regime is eager to talk.
The escalation also comes amid reports that the Pentagon is running low on stockpiles needed to continue waging Trump’s war at the present rate. Current and former officials at the Department of Defense told the Washington Post last week that training and maintenance are now being scaled down to save cash as the administration begs Congress to fork over $67 billion to make up the shortfall caused by the conflict.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon for comment on this story.
