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In a post on X, CENTCOM wrote, “The ​strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the ​IRGC against commercial ​shipping in the Strait ‌of ⁠Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the ​region.” The US military started striking targets in Iran as hostilities flared again after a month without military action.

Today at 12 p.m. ET, U.S. forces began striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets in Iran. The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region.

The fallout was immediate: oil prices jumped, a tanker was reportedly struck near the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran’s foreign minister used a regional summit to demand the US return to its prior commitments.

In a post that set off much of Monday’s news cycle, Trump wrote that Iran “is officially a Failed Nation” and declared “IT IS DEAD!” He claimed the country has no navy, no air force and no functioning currency, and said its soldiers and police are going unpaid amid what he described as 300% inflation. He also said Iran’s leadership is in “total disarray” and called it “incapable” of properly representing the country.

The post claimed Iran has shown “a willingness to kill their protesters,” putting the death toll at “over 100,000 people,” and said Iranian leaders “must be tried for war crimes against humanity.”

Trump also dismissed criticism of his claims as sympathetic coverage from US media and, in his words, “a good line of ‘BULLSHIT.'”

The post landed hours after Iran launched missiles at two US air bases in Jordan overnight the first direct exchange of attacks between the two countries in roughly a month, following a US strike on Iranian launch systems on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

Jordan’s army confirmed it intercepted eight missiles fired at the bases early Monday morning.

Speaking separately to Fox News’s Trey Yingst, Trump said the US would respond to the Jordan attack, telling the network, “We’re going to hit them hard,” and adding that “there will be a response.”

Vice-President JD Vance said a separate, cryptic Trump social media post referencing Kharg Island was intended as “a message to the Iranians,” even though a US official later said the military had not actually targeted the island overnight.

US Vice President JD Vance said that President Donald Trump’s social media post claiming Iran’s energy hub of Kharg Island had been blown to smithereens was supposedly intended to send a message to Tehran."The president likes to switch it up on social media a little bit. He… https://t.co/YJIUxNpsxI pic.twitter.com/Jy3FX2ugmi

An Iranian official dismissed the post as “laughable.” The post was accompanied by an AI-generated video clip depicting fabricated US military strikes.

Speaking after the first day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Washington “must return to its commitments” and honor the terms of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding an agreement he said the US has violated.

He added that resolving the standoff depends on the US returning to those terms, noting that ending the war remains a shared concern among nations.

Brent crude rose 0.6% to $91.05 a barrel and WTI gained 1% to $86.59 early Tuesday, building on a strong session Monday when both benchmarks touched their highest levels in weeks.

Analyst Tim Waterer of KCM said the renewed threat of Iranian retaliation has revived concerns about damage to Gulf energy infrastructure and uncertainty over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz stayed thin on Monday, hovering around five ships compared with a 10-day average of roughly 14, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler.

Mediation efforts by Qatar and Oman to reopen the strait which once carried about a fifth of global oil supplies have so far failed to gain traction since Iran shut the waterway following US and Israeli strikes in late February.