Qeshm Island, which sits inside that strait and anchors Iran's naval capabilities, had not been hit since June. That changed late Monday, when explosions rocked the island in what an unnamed US official called defensive strikes against Iranians firing surface-to-air missiles at US assets, Al Jazeera reported, while two US officials told ABC News the limited action answered an Iranian attack on a US aircraft and did not signal a return to major combat. Washington had kept similar strikes in recent weeks out of public view so they would not be read as an escalation.
Diplomacy has run alongside the shooting. Qatari mediators traveled to Tehran on Monday night to go over a draft US-Iran deal with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Al Jazeera reported. Foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei argued that a shortened version of the peace plan Tehran put forward in September, one that would reopen the strait, could take effect within two days. Tehran's government now holds "certain authorities" over the negotiations with Washington, a grant from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, according to local media accounts of remarks by President Masoud Pezeshkian. That marks a shift from the collapse of June's memorandum, after which the supreme leader said the United States could not be trusted.
Markets read the day as a step toward settlement. Oil fell more than 7 percent on Monday, Al Jazeera reported, and a UBS analyst said the market was still swinging on every headline from the region after escalation fears had lifted prices the previous week. A decision on resuming strikes was not urgent, President Donald Trump said in an Axios interview, even as he attributed the slide to headway in the talks.