U.S. forces struck Iranian targets for a sixth consecutive night, expanding the campaign to roads, bridges and military bases around Bandar Abbas as the 60-day negotiating window between Washington and Tehran reached its halfway point on Friday.
The memorandum of understanding signed June 17 gave both sides two months to negotiate Iran's nuclear and missile programs, sanctions, and freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Thirty days in, the ceasefire Trump once declared "over" has curdled into the widest exchange of fire since the deal was struck.
The sixth night of strikes marked a new phase, according to Fox News reporting: the targets shifted to infrastructure around Bandar Abbas, a strategic port central to Iran's control of the strait, aimed at cutting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces off from resupply routes.
CENTCOM said U.S. forces struck more than 300 Iranian targets over three nights in early July after Iran attacked commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz — hitting air defenses, missile and drone sites, coastal radars and naval capabilities.
Iran responded with missile and drone attacks across the Gulf. On Friday, an Iranian strike damaged a major power and desalination plant in Kuwait, while Qatar, Bahrain and other regional states reported additional incoming attacks.
Iranian military spokesman Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, in remarks carried by Fars news agency, warned that "all the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran" if the U.S. continued. He called the Strait of Hormuz Iran's "invincible red line."
"We received a call just as I was coming here, and they want to meet."
Trump told Fox News on Thursday that Iran had reached out. "They don't like what we're doing, and they do want to settle," he said. "We'll find out whether or not we settle with them, or we just finish it off."
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a Thursday briefing that Iran "continues to talk to the United States" and wants a deal "because they are suffering devastating blows." She said the recent strikes came because Iran "violated the memorandum of understanding."
The administration has already walked back one of the deal's core concessions. On June 22, the Treasury Department issued a general license authorizing the sale of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products through Aug. 21. The license was revoked less than three weeks later after Iran attacked three commercial vessels in the strait. A U.S. official said the agreement was "entirely performance-based" and that Iran would receive benefits only with "good behavior."
The U.S. also reinstated its blockade of Iranian ports and disabled the Curaçao-flagged tanker Belma after CENTCOM said it ignored warnings while sailing toward Iran's primary oil-export terminal.
Iran accused Washington of violating the memorandum, arguing Tehran was complying by managing passage through the strait and blaming shipping companies for using uncoordinated routes.
Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, told Fox News Digital that the two sides entered the period with fundamentally different objectives. "The U.S. saw it as an opportunity to get a long-term agreement," he said. "The Iranians saw it as an opportunity to rearm." Roman said the renewed fighting suggests the administration now views military pressure as a prerequisite: "You have to hit them hard before you get an agreement."
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, speaking to the Financial Times, questioned whether expanded bombing would force Iran to change course. "I'm not confident that if we picked up the bombing the way we did months ago and sustained it for a period of time, that that would have a big change," Esper said. He argued for "comprehensive" economic pressure backed by international support, while acknowledging it would require "time, patience (and) discipline" and could mean higher gasoline prices.
One sign that communication remains open: Iran allowed U.S.-Iranian citizen Dena Karari to leave the country Wednesday after preventing her departure since December 2024. Trump thanked Iran for what he called a "gesture of goodwill."
The next 30 days will determine whether the military pressure creates leverage for diplomacy — or closes the window with the two sides back at war.