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President Donald Trump announced Sunday that the United States hit Iran “very hard” overnight in direct retaliation for Tehran’s latest drone strike on a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump confirmed the intensive military strikes during a telephone interview with CNN, which primarily focused on the death of Senator Lindsey Graham.
The president revealed that the United States and Iran stood incredibly close to finalising a major diplomatic agreement on Saturday, claiming the Iranians were giving up everything.
The diplomatic breakthrough collapsed just two hours later when an Iranian drone struck the vessel, prompting the immediate American counteroffensive.
This volatile escalation effectively shatters the fragile diplomatic progress made over the summer.
The conflict originally erupted on February 28, 2026, when a massive joint US-Israeli aerial campaign killed Iran’s long-time Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plunging the region into war.
While the subsequent Islamabad Memorandum in June briefly restored calm and established a 60-day window to negotiate a permanent truce, the agreement unravelled this month over control of the waterway.
Tehran continuously demands absolute jurisdiction and navigation fees from ships traversing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint responsible for one-fifth of the world’s petroleum transit.
By attacking non-compliant vessels along the Omani coast, Iran provoked the crushing U.S. counterstrikes that have brought both nuclear-focused adversaries back to the brink of all-out war.
