As the Middle East war entered what many analysts described as its most dangerous week yet, global oil prices refused to fall from their position above $100 per barrel, reflecting a market judgment that the conflict showed no sign of de-escalating and every sign of spreading further.
Israeli strikes on oil storage facilities near Tehran killed four workers and left the capital draped in black smoke. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by threatening $200 crude and launching simultaneous strikes against Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait — the most geographically expansive Iranian military operation since the conflict began.
Saudi forces intercepted 15 drones, Bahrain’s desalination plant was damaged, two Saudi civilians were killed, and a US service member died from wounds sustained in an Iranian attack — the seventh American killed. Reports that Russia had been providing targeting intelligence to Iran raised alarming questions about the extent of outside involvement in the conflict.
Iran’s clerical body appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader, a historic first that analysts said was unlikely to produce any moderation in Iran’s military posture. The new leader inherited a country at war on multiple fronts, with a military operating beyond civilian control and an oil-dependent economy facing unprecedented disruption.
Washington pledged not to strike Iranian oil infrastructure and predicted short-term supply disruptions. But with the conflict expanding daily and every major indicator — casualty counts, geographic reach, oil prices, geopolitical involvement — pointing in the wrong direction, the assessment that the worst week was still ahead appeared depressingly well-founded.
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