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■ IRAN WAR · OPERATION EPIC FURY
Iran War
Direct strikes, a collapsed deal, and the running cost.
DAY 140 · US–IRAN WAR
Seventh straight night of US strikes hits Chabahar’s port tower and six Hormozgan bridges; Iran answers against Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar; Hormuz stays shut.
140
DAYS OF WAR
$88
BRENT · WTI $82 · +4.6% FRIDAY
IN FORCE
PORT BLOCKADE · 3 SHIPS TURNED, TANKER DISABLED
3,636
IR DEATHS (HRANA)
- Seventh night, wider targets. CENTCOM says it struck Iranian air defenses and military logistics before dawn Friday; Iran says the wave hit six Hormozgan bridges, power lines and a maritime control tower at Chabahar, whose collapse Hegseth posted.
- Iran hits back wide. The IRGC says it targeted Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Jordan; interception shrapnel over Qatar’s Al Udeid wounded four, including a child. Missiles in Iraqi Kurdistan killed at least eight Iranian-Kurdish opposition fighters.
- Gulf air defenses busy. Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar say they intercepted incoming fire and Jordan reported downing missiles; Kuwait says a strike hit a power-and-desalination plant, sparking a fire that knocked out generating units.
- Blockade holds, oil up. US says it struck a tanker at Kharg Island and turned back others; Iran reports two tankers afire on strait mines — CENTCOM calls the claim false. Brent settled near $88, WTI ~$82.
- The toll, contested. Iranian state media report at least seven killed and about 20 wounded in the latest strikes; officials put the week’s dead at 38, with more than 400 wounded. Figures are unverified.
- Halfway, no deal. Friday marks 60 days since the Jun 17 memorandum. Trump calls the ceasefire “over”; Iran’s foreign ministry denies it is seeking new talks.
- Tehran sets a clock. IRGC figure Mohsen Rezaei says on state radio that if US strikes continue “another two or three days,” Iran will move to “full-scale offensive operations.”
🇺🇸 US — SAY: Trump calls the ceasefire “over” and casts the strikes as leverage for a deal, vowing to knock out “all their power plants” and “all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.” DO: US forces struck Iran’s south for a seventh straight night — six Hormozgan bridges and the Chabahar port tower — and held the naval blockade.
🇮🇷 Iran — SAY: Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the US strikes have “rendered key, fundamental elements of the war-ending agreement ineffective” and calls them “wholly unprovoked, illegal, and illegitimate.” DO: The IRGC fired another retaliatory wave — missiles and drones at Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Jordan — and keeps Hormuz shut.
SOURCES:
Al Jazeera (Jul 17: US attacks southern Iran as Tehran hits Gulf countries) ·
NPR (Jul 17: US strikes bridges in Iran; Tehran targets US bases in the Gulf) ·
CBS News (Jul 17: 7th straight night of strikes; CENTCOM disputes tanker-mine claim) ·
CNBC (Jul 17: oil rises after Iran strikes a Kuwaiti power and desalination plant)
🏔️ THEATRE MAP — GULF / HORMUZ
The full force-laydown map — carriers, bases, named strike sites, incidents, and the Jun 9–10 strike corridor — lives on Track the Troops →
FOR THE RECORD
The Islamabad Memorandum — signed Jun 17 at Versailles, declared “over” in Ankara Jul 8. What was signed, and where each clause ended up.
THE ISLAMABAD MOU · 14 POINTS
Signed Jun 17 — Trump at Versailles, Pezeshkian by electronic exchange, Pakistan’s prime minister as broker. In effect at signature; the Geneva ceremony was scrapped as redundant. The full text reached NPR within a day.
- Permanent end of operations on all fronts — Lebanon included — no future war, threats of force, or interference
- Mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity
- 60 days to a final Deal, extendable by mutual consent
- Blockade comes off — removal begins at signature, complete within 30 days; US forces leave Iran’s periphery 30 days after the final Deal
- Hormuz reopens — Iran de-mines and runs safe passage, free for 60 days; the strait’s future administration to be settled with Oman
- $300B reconstruction plan for Iran, assembled by the US with regional partners
- All sanctions terminated — UNSC, IAEA and unilateral US, primary and secondary, on a schedule set in the final Deal
- No Iranian bomb, reaffirmed — the stockpile down-blended on-site under IAEA supervision; enrichment itself deferred to the final Deal
- Status-quo freeze — Iran’s nuclear program holds where it is; no new US sanctions or regional deployments
- Oil moves immediately — Treasury waivers for Iranian crude and the banking, insurance and shipping around it
- Frozen assets made usable to Iran’s central bank once release procedures are agreed
- A joint compliance monitor to police implementation
- Sequencing — final-deal talks open only once the ceasefire, blockade lift, safe passage, waivers and asset release are moving
- A binding UNSC resolution to seal the final Deal
HOW IT DIED · 21 DAYS
In effect Jun 17. Pronounced “over” Jul 8. The unraveling, clause by clause:
- Jun 17 — the ink still wet. Tehran rules out negotiating missiles or shipping uranium abroad, and says strait fees start when the free days lapse; Washington had promised Hormuz “permanently toll-free.” Ghalibaf calls the text “a record of US failure.”
- Jun 18–19 — Lebanon breaks first. ¶1 covers “all fronts, including Lebanon” — Israel says it signed nothing and isn’t bound. South Lebanon logs the deadliest day of the whole war; the first talks slip.
- Late June — a narrow channel. Convoys move by permission on approved routes; the strait runs about a third full; oil eases to $72. Khamenei’s funerals freeze the talks through Jul 9. Doha briefs “positive progress.”
- Jul 7 — the ships burn. Iranian missiles hit a Qatari gas carrier and a Saudi crude tanker inside the strait the paper reopened. Free passage (¶5) dies at sea.
- Jul 8 — pronounced dead. US aircraft strike 80-plus coastal targets; Iran answers at bases in Bahrain and Kuwait. Trump, in Ankara, declares the memorandum “over” and “a waste of time.”
- Jul 14 — back to February. The blockade ¶4 lifted is reimposed and ships are turned back; the IRGC calls Hormuz closed again. The 60-day clock (¶3) stops at Day 27, 33 unused.
WHAT’S LEFT OF IT
Dead on the ground: the all-fronts ceasefire (¶1), the blockade lift (¶4), free passage (¶5) — all reversed by Jul 14.
Never tested: the $300B reconstruction plan (¶6) and sanctions termination (¶7) — parked in a final Deal whose talks ¶13 conditioned on a ceasefire that didn’t hold.
Never resolved: whether anyone may charge for the strait — Washington says nobody tolls an international waterway; Tehran says its coast, its services, its fees — and whether a paper Israel never signed could bind Lebanon.
Read the shape: the signed text ran 14 points, not Washington’s nine — structurally Tehran’s draft, down to the Oman dialogue on strait administration. 60 days of runway; the paper lived 21.
IRAN WAR COSTS
Where the money goes. Public DoD, CBO & think-tank reporting — re-pegged to Day 138.
SPENDING ESTIMATES
$80–100B
TOTAL EST. COST
~$650M
AVG DAILY BURN
$530–660
COST PER TAXPAYER
The Receipts
The $80–100B is the all-in internal estimate US officials describe; the Pentagon’s acknowledged direct-operations figure is $42B — a tab that opened at $11.3B for the war’s first six days and has been revised up at every briefing since. Outside tallies run toward $200B once aircraft replacement (42 lost or damaged, per CRS), base repair, and economy-wide costs load in; an $87B war supplemental sits with Congress. The average daily burn reads lower than April’s $810M peg only because the ledger now spans two long lulls. Not on any ledger: 13 US service members killed, some 400 wounded. Taxpayer figure: ~152M federal filers against the internal estimate. Re-pegged Jul 15 · Day 138.