The Iran ceasefire has collapsed, and the world’s oil is caught in the middle
A third round of American strikes and a contested closure of the Strait of Hormuz have reignited a conflict that runs all the way to the petrol bowser in Australia.
The ceasefire is dead.
The United States launched its third round of strikes on Iran on Saturday, hitting 140 military targets, after Iran fired on a container ship and declared the Strait of Hormuz closed.
One-fifth of the world’s oil passes through that strait.
Now it is a war zone.
The latest round began when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps struck the Cyprus-flagged container ship GFS Galaxy, accusing it of using an unauthorised route through the waterway.
One crew member is missing.
The ship took significant damage to its engine room, according to US Central Command.
Iran said it fired only a warning shot, and that the strait would be closed until further notice.
Washington’s response was not a warning.
US forces hit 140 targets — missile and drone sites, naval capabilities, ammunition stores, communication networks and coastal surveillance posts — using precision munitions launched from aircraft, drones and warships.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth put it bluntly: “Iran made a poor choice. Now they pay.”
Then the Gulf lit up.
Overnight, at least five Middle Eastern states reported fresh attacks.
Qatar’s military intercepted a wave of ballistic missiles over Doha.
Kuwait said it was confronting hostile aerial targets in its airspace.
Air-raid sirens sounded across Bahrain.
The IRGC claimed it had struck a US base in Jordan, destroying a command centre and drone hangars at Prince Hassan Air Base.
This is the collapse of a deal meant to end the fighting the United States and Israel began in February.
Delegations from both countries had been at the table only last month, working towards a war-ending agreement built on a signed memorandum of understanding.
Iran’s chief negotiator, parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, blamed Washington for tearing it up.
“The era of one-sided deals is OVER,” he wrote.
“We told you: keep your word or pay the price.”
For all the talk of memorandums and unauthorised routes, the stakes are simple, and they are global.
The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow neck through which a fifth of the planet’s oil and liquefied natural gas is shipped.
Iran says it is closed. The US says commercial vessels are still getting through.
Either way, the message to the shipping industry has landed: crossing it now means crossing a firing line.
And a threatened Hormuz means a nervous oil market.
That is where the war reaches Australia.
The country buys little crude directly from the Gulf, but it fills up on a global fuel market that reacts to exactly this kind of shock.
When Hormuz is in the headlines, the number on the bowser tends to follow — regardless of how far away the missiles are landing.
The fighting is thousands of kilometres from here.
Its cost may not stay there.