The fragile MoU that has notionally governed this crisis since mid-June effectively ended this weekend — not through a dramatic collapse of talks, but through Iran’s own characterization of events. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said Saturday that the US had “violated all the commitments and suspended the MoU entirely,” a claim that followed rather than caused the weekend’s real escalation: a Friday strike on a US base in Jordan killed two American service members and left a third missing — the first US combat fatalities from Iranian fire since March, bringing the war’s cumulative US death toll to 16. The US answered with an eighth consecutive night of strikes, for the first time reaching into Iran’s partially-built Darkhovin nuclear facility (the IAEA says no nuclear material was present at its last inspection, and the site remains in early construction). Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei called Trump’s signature on the MoU “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility” and said Iran has “unforgettable lessons in store” for the US; asked about Iran’s repudiation of the deal, Trump told a reporter, “I couldn’t care less.” Neither side is currently signaling any interest in repairing the framework.
Kuwait bore the brunt of Iran’s retaliation, struck on consecutive days. Friday, Iran hit a Kuwaiti power and water-desalination plant, starting a fire; Saturday, a second power/desalination plant was hit, deactivating several generating units, and Kuwait Petroleum Corporation separately confirmed one of its oil facilities near Ahmadi Governorate was damaged by “repeated Iranian attacks,” with significant material damage and some injuries. Kuwait International Airport suspended flights amid the rocket and drone activity. Iran’s IRGC claimed the strikes targeted a US military support center at Camp Arifjan and a radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base. Bahrain and Jordan were also hit again in the same window: Bahrain said its air defenses repelled the attacks, while Jordan shot down three of four incoming missiles. An analyst view worth noting (Dr. Arman Mahmoudian, University of South Florida, speaking to the Jerusalem Post): Iran has “reprioritized” from preserving détente with its Gulf neighbors toward regime survival, which is consistent with a pattern of escalating against Gulf-state infrastructure even at the cost of the diplomatic relationships it spent the past month rebuilding.
Crude has moved accordingly. Brent settled $88.10 Friday (+4.6% d/d), a one-month-plus high, and WTI settled near $82.49 (+4.5%). Monday, Brent traded above $90 intraday — its highest level since mid-June — before paring some of the gain; WTI traded near $84. Maritime risk specialists describe the Strait itself as being back in a “worst-case scenario”: Lloyd’s List Intelligence counts at least nine ships attacked since July 6, transit volumes reduced to “a trickle” with a share of vessels running dark on AIS to avoid targeting. GEF’s own independent AIS audit, covering four frames from Friday night through this morning, tells a more specific story: the Hormuz persistent core — HARBOUR PHOENIX, MARIVAN, CASPIA, SYRON, GPS GOD, SOLIX and STARBOUND EXPLORER — has held continuously through the entire political rupture, with ordinary secondary-vessel turnover and no empty-frame signal. Bab el-Mandeb likewise shows dense, ordinary transiting traffic across the same four frames, with no AIS evidence yet that the Houthis’ stated intent to close the strait alongside Hormuz has materialized on the water — a useful distinction between a declared threat and a physical fact, consistent with GEF’s standing rule that a declaration is not itself a measurement.
Away from the Gulf, this week’s underweighted-region rotation (Central Asia) surfaced a genuine, if contested, new shortage case. Independent, multiply-sourced ground reporting describes dry filling stations and 20-liter-per-vehicle rationing in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and buses pulled off routes in the country’s second city, Khujand. The root cause runs through a different node of the system entirely: Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries have cut Russia’s rail exports of jet fuel to Central Asia by more than 90% month-on-month in June and gasoline by roughly a third, and Tajikistan sources an estimated 70-84% of its petroleum imports from Russia. Tajikistan’s Antimonopoly Service has publicly denied that a “shortage” is occurring, even as the government simultaneously rolled out subsidized diesel for farmers and is negotiating emergency imports from Iraq (10,000 tons already agreed), Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia. GEF treats this the same way it treats a contested chokepoint declaration: the physical evidence — confirmed dry pumps, confirmed rationing, confirmed route suspensions — decides the classification, not the official statement, and on that evidence this clears the bar for a shortage designation. Neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan show real but so-far lesser stress: Kyrgyz officials cite six-plus weeks of reserves, while Kazakhstan’s tightness is presently concentrated in jet fuel around Astana, tied to scheduled refinery maintenance rather than confirmed consumer rationing.
The bypass-infrastructure buildout that has been this crisis’s quiet counter-story kept advancing even through the weekend’s violence. Goldman Sachs estimates seven Gulf pipelines now under construction or in planning could lift regional Hormuz-bypass capacity above 14 million barrels a day by the end of 2028 — more than 60% of the seven Gulf states’ combined pre-war 23 million bpd export volume — and Iraq signed an agreement Friday to restore its Kirkuk-to-Syria pipeline to the Mediterranean, dormant since 2003. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Friday that Hormuz tolls are “off the table” and predicted the strait’s importance to the global market will structurally decline as this bypass capacity comes online. But the complicating fact is now impossible to set aside: Fujairah, the UAE’s existing Hormuz-bypass terminal, was itself hit in the July 12 six-country barrage. The pipelines are a hedge against Hormuz risk, not an escape from the underlying vulnerability — the same low-cost, asymmetric tools Iran has used against tankers apply just as well to a bypass terminal or a pumping station, as already demonstrated against Saudi Arabia’s East-West line in April.
For the full risk matrix and this week’s Analyst Outlook, see the Risk Analysis page; for the live chokepoint picture, including Bab el-Mandeb, see Marine Traffic; for the new Tajikistan entry, see Shortages.