Iran said on Sunday (30) it had fired ballistic missiles at the American military bases King Hussein and Al Azraq in Jordan, making good on the retaliation it had promised after the United States struck rocket launchers on the Iranian island of Larak, near the Strait of Hormuz. The announcement came from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the branch of Iran's armed forces that answers to the supreme leader, according to Estadão Conteúdo. CNN reported that the exchange marks the first escalation between the two countries in more than a month; G1 described the American strike as the first US attack on Iran since July.
Accounts differ on the outcome. A US official told CNN that missiles fired toward Jordan were intercepted and that, so far, there are no reports of impacts. Hours earlier, US Central Command (CENTCOM) had confirmed, through spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins, the destruction of two rocket launchers on Larak. The strike was triggered, according to CNN, after American forces observed Iranian troops preparing to fire rockets and lay mines in the Strait, the corridor that carries a large share of the world's seaborne oil. The IRGC acknowledged losses: according to the state broadcaster Irib, the attack killed and wounded several Iranian soldiers and civilians, and the Guard promised to "respond and punish those responsible".
What it means for Brazil
For Brazil, the main channel of transmission is the oil price. Hormuz is one of the world's key crude corridors, and every cycle of escalation between Iran and the US raises the risk premium on Brent, the benchmark that shapes fuel prices at Brazilian pumps and, with them, inflation. So far, though, the war has not broken the market: according to Bloomberg, cited in an analysis by CNN's Brett McGurk, who held senior national security posts in US administrations from George W. Bush to Joe Biden, oil flows through the Strait have recovered to two thirds of pre-war levels and energy prices have stayed stable. The risk now is that renewed attacks undo that stability. Diplomatically, Brasilia's line has been to keep channels open to both capitals: in 2010, then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva negotiated, alongside Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a declaration in Tehran meant to enable a nuclear fuel swap with Iran.
The interests at stake
The map of interests explains the scale. Washington wants Iran to stop threatening ships in the Strait and to give up what remains of its enrichment program; since mid-July, the US has kept a military blockade on Iranian ports and sanctions on the country's oil trade. Tehran, whose economy is expected to shrink by more than 5% this year with inflation near 70%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is betting on raising the global cost of the war to force President Donald Trump to back down before the US midterm elections, as McGurk notes. An official at Iran's Labor Ministry estimated that more than 1 million jobs were lost in the first three months of the conflict. Jordan, a US ally that hosts American troops, is back at the center of the board.
Sunday's retaliation is the first test of the fragile balance in place since July. In the timeline laid out by McGurk, the war has run in four chapters: intensive bombing from February 28, a ceasefire on April 7, a provisional memorandum signed on June 17 by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and, after Iran resumed attacking commercial ships, the American blockade. In the hours after the Larak strike, an oil tanker was hit by a projectile in the Strait of Hormuz with no casualties reported, according to Estadão Conteúdo, and Iran's supreme leader called, in a message carried by state media, for Muslim countries to unite against the US and Israel.