U.S. holding the line

American drones hit two Iranian tankers in Hormuz under Trump's new retaliatory policy

U.S. forces struck two Iranian government tankers anchored off Iran's coast on Tuesday and hit roughly 100 additional targets across the country, the first use of President Trump's "tanker for tanker" policy after Tehran attacked commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

American drones fired missiles into the engine rooms of both vessels, which sat north of the U.S. blockade line, while a broader CENTCOM operation hammered air-defense batteries, radar installations, maritime facilities, mine-laying equipment, and communications sites from one end of Iran's military infrastructure to the other.

The independent tracking firm TankerTrackers.com reviewed CENTCOM footage and assessed that both tankers were empty at the time of the strikes, though their precise ownership had not yet been confirmed.

The operation marks a sharp escalation in Washington's posture toward Tehran. For months, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has harassed and attacked commercial vessels transiting the strait, the narrow chokepoint through which a huge share of the world's oil moves every day. 

A pair of IRGC strikes on tankers carrying Saudi crude finally triggered the new policy, which President Trump approved to answer every Iranian attack on a commercial ship with a direct hit on an Iranian one.

Forty commercial ships moved through the strait while U.S. forces held the line.

Even as missiles and drones flew, roughly 40 commercial vessels transited into or out of the Persian Gulf on Tuesday, carrying millions of barrels of oil under the security umbrella American forces maintained over the shipping lanes.

That detail alone illustrates what the operation was designed to prove: the United States can keep global energy markets open while punishing the regime responsible for threatening them.

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