The ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran, signed less than a fortnight ago, is disintegrating amid a sharp escalation in military exchanges and an explicit threat from President Donald Trump that the Islamic Republic could cease to exist. Writing on his Truth Social platform on Saturday, Trump confirmed that US aircraft had struck Iranian missile and drone storage sites and coastal radar installations, accusing Tehran of repeatedly violating the truce. Hours later, US Central Command announced a second wave of strikes, targeting what it described as military surveillance infrastructure, communications systems, air-defence sites, drone depots and naval minelaying capabilities. Trump’s statement carried an unusually blunt ultimatum: “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will cease to exist.”

These tit-for-tat attacks extended across the Persian Gulf. According to US Central Command, the American operations were launched in direct response to an Iranian suicide-drone strike earlier that day against the Panama-flagged tanker M/T Kiko, carrying more than two million barrels of crude oil near the Strait of Hormuz. In turn, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had fired ballistic missiles and drones at US military positions in Bahrain and Kuwait. Air-raid sirens sounded across Bahrain, where the interior ministry confirmed that an Iranian attack caused damage to a residential building in Muharraq, though no casualties were reported. Kuwait’s army said it intercepted two ballistic missiles. A US official quoted by Reuters acknowledged the attacks but indicated that no American personnel had been killed or wounded and no major damage to bases was immediately assessed, adding that the situation remained fluid.

The immediate trigger conceals a deeper strategic dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s petroleum and liquefied natural gas passes. According to diplomatic sources and analysts cited by Reuters, the core disagreement between Washington and Tehran centres on how maritime traffic should be managed. The United States has been promoting a southern shipping lane along the Omani coast, while Iran insists on a northern route through waters it controls and, according to these sources, ultimately aims to levy transit fees. Tehran’s recent targeting of commercial vessels — first a cargo ship on Thursday and then the M/T Kiko on Saturday — is seen by Western officials as an attempt to assert such control. The strait had only recently reopened after months of war-related disruption, a development that helped push global oil prices back towards pre-war levels.

Diplomatic efforts to salvage the ceasefire appear to have stalled. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard warned that its attacks on US bases would “lead to a complete halt of diplomatic processes,” and its naval command threatened that American regional bases “will experience hell in the coming days.” Bahrain has requested an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. The initial memorandum of understanding, brokered by Pakistan and Qatar, was signed electronically on 18 June, but the sequencing of mutual de-escalation — including a parallel Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon — remains unimplemented. In southern Lebanon, Israeli forces reported killing several Hezbollah fighters, underscoring the interconnected nature of the confrontations. With no further direct talks scheduled and both sides publicly doubling down, the narrow window for restoring the truce is closing rapidly.