The most remarkable aspect of Iran’s military expansion over the weekend was that it occurred despite — or perhaps because of — visible and public divisions within the country’s leadership. Iran’s president apologized to Gulf neighbors and pledged to halt strikes against them, while the military continued its operations without pause, driving oil above $100 per barrel and demonstrating that no single actor controls Iran’s war machine.
Israeli strikes on oil storage and fuel distribution sites near Tehran killed four workers and left the capital cloaked in smoke. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards threatened $200 crude and launched strikes against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, confirming that the military’s objectives were not constrained by the civilian government’s diplomatic signals.
Saudi forces intercepted 15 drones, Bahrain’s desalination plant was hit, two Saudi civilians were killed, and a US service member died from wounds sustained in an Iranian attack — the seventh American fatality of the war. Reports that Russia had been supplying Iran with targeting intelligence deepened the geopolitical complexity of the crisis.
Iran’s clerical assembly appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, selecting the son of the late Ali Khamenei in a historic first. His appointment was seen as likely to consolidate military authority rather than civilian control, reducing the chances that the president’s more moderate signals would translate into actual policy changes.
Washington pledged not to target Iranian oil infrastructure and predicted short-term supply disruptions. But with Iran’s military advancing independently of its civilian government and oil above $100 per barrel, the situation was being driven by actors and dynamics that defied easy management or prediction.