The next phase of the Iran war may be fought over electricity. Axios reported on Friday that President Trump is seriously considering strikes on energy targets inside Iran within days, though a US official said no final orders have been given. The Wall Street Journal reported that preparations for a renewed campaign are underway, with operations possible as early as this weekend, and CBS reported that the United States and Israel are coordinating potential joint strikes on petroleum refineries and power plants, which would mark Israel’s first direct participation in the campaign in weeks.
The stated purpose is to pressure Tehran into accepting ceasefire terms. All the reports carry the same caveat: plans can be called off until the moment they begin. At the Camp David cabinet meeting, Trump said he was losing faith in Tehran, accused the Iranians of lying and misrepresenting, and promised to hit them very hard until they decide they cannot take it anymore. Officials in the room reported that his one-sentence summary was that he wants to win.
Tehran has already written the reply. Nour News, a media outlet close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, warned on Saturday that a strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure would trigger a wider regional energy crisis and named the facilities it said would be at risk: Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar oil field and the Abqaiq and Khurais processing plants, the UAE’s Zakum field and Ruwais refinery, Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex, Kuwait’s Burgan field, Bahrain’s Sitra refinery, and Israel’s Leviathan and Tamar gas fields. A senior Iranian security official told the Tasnim news agency that the reports of prospective strikes amounted to madness, and that Iran has formulated comprehensive retaliatory strategies covering US energy assets across the Middle East and critical installations in Israel.
This is not the first time this particular escalation has been threatened. In March, Trump gave Tehran a deadline over the strait and warned of the obliteration of Iran’s power plants; Iran answered that if its fuel and energy infrastructure were attacked, all US energy infrastructure in the region would become a target, along with desalination facilities. The strikes were postponed after talks, and the threat was parked. It has now returned, with the war five months old, oil above $90 a barrel, and both sides already attacking shipping.
The logic of the exchange is simple and dangerous. Iran’s grid is not the only grid in the Gulf. The region’s oil and gas complexes sit close together, and the same missiles that could hit Iranian refineries could, in Iranian hands, reach Saudi, Emirati, Qatari or Kuwaiti ones. A war that begins with Washington striking Iranian power plants could end with the world’s energy system held hostage by both sides. The markets understand this: every report of imminent strikes moves the price of crude.
The decision now sits in front of a president who has spent five months promising a short war that has not ended. Striking Iran’s energy infrastructure would be the largest escalation yet, with a response Tehran has already written down and published. The only question that matters is whether Washington believes the threat, because the list of facilities in Tehran’s warning is not a bluff to be tested cheaply. It is a map of the world’s oil supply.