Dorothy

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which rose immediately after the interim deal, is back to a small fraction of what it was before the war. Rising prices of fuel and other goods are expected to climb further the longer this continues with effects far beyond the Middle East.

“Any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor U.S. military amounts to participation alongside U.S. military forces,” he said in a statement distributed by Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency.

"We wish to warn that any assistance or facilitation provided to the aggressor U.S. military amounts to participation in the U.S. military operation," armed forces chief of staff Ali Abdollahi said.

The UAE accuses Iran of firing missiles. Tehran denies it Following the announcement that two ballistic missiles had been fired toward the UAE, both of which splashed down in the Persian Gulf late Tuesday, the Emirati Foreign Ministry said it decided to impose the punitive measures, while also saying it remained committed to “dialogue, cooperation and regional integration.”

UAE suspends trade with Iran after saying it fired missiles at Gulf state Defence ministry says weapons were targeting maritime traffic but fell into the sea

And in another significant escalation that effectively torpedoes any remaining illusions of hoped-for cross-Gulf detente, the United Arab Emirates has announced Wednesday a complete and immediate severance of all economic ties with Tehran. The move comes on the heels of what UAE officials claim was a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles targeted directly at Emirati territory.

Iran has weighed attacking US military targets in Europe should Donald Trump escalate the war, according to people close to the regime, as Tehran considers its options to increase the stakes of the conflict. FT

As part of Iran’s efforts to maintain a stranglehold over the Strait of Hormuz, it has regularly attacked ships attempting to use the waterway, including four tankers owned by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned ADNOC oil and gas company over the past two weeks. None of the attacks caused injuries, but they brought harsh condemnation from the UAE and others in the region, including Kuwait and Bahrain.

Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz are piling up without an American military response, raising the risks of crossing the strategic waterway and frustrating some Arab allies who worry the U.S. doesn’t have a strategy to wind down the conflict. WSJ

Beyond the trade in domestically produced goods, “the UAE has been very important for Iran as a re-export hub and has helped the country absorb some of the shocks caused by sanctions,” Mohammad Farzanegan, a professor of Middle Eastern economics at Germany’s University of Marburg, told The Associated Press.

The economic pressure follows the intense bombing campaign that targeted industrial and civilian infrastructure in addition to military targets. Already the International Monetary Fund forecasts inflation of nearly 70% this year in Iran and an economic contraction of 5.4%. Meanwhile, its rial currency has hit record lows.