The conflict between the US and Iran escalated sharply over the weekend, with the US destroying a rocket launcher on Iran's Larak Island and Iran retaliating with missiles against Jordan. This exposed Washington's deep frustration with the slow progress of sanctions. Trump's threat to bomb Hag Island is likely just talk, and Iran may continue its "asymmetric confrontation" retaliation, adding further uncertainty to navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and putting downward pressure on oil prices. I. The Frustration of Ineffective Sanctions: The Deeper Logic Behind the US Resurgence Analysts say the sudden escalation of hostility between the US and Iran over the weekend indicates that Washington has lost patience with the slow progress of sanctions and the failure of economic pressure to produce quick results. This round of military action is not an isolated incident, but a landmark shift in the US's resurgence of force after its "financial warfare" failed to achieve its intended objectives. On Sunday, the US destroyed two rocket launchers on Iran's Larak Island. Iran was preparing to launch mine-laden rockets into the Strait of Hormuz, ending a month-long hiatus in direct combat between the two sides. Larak Island is strategically extremely sensitive at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz—Iran's deployment of rocket launchers there means it has the ability to mine-block the strait's shipping lanes in a short period, directly impacting the lifeline of global energy transport. This was the first time since late July that the US publicly acknowledged launching an attack. Iran retaliated within hours, launching eight missiles at Jordan's King Hussein and Azraq air bases. The Jordanian government stated that its air defense system intercepted all eight missiles, causing no casualties. It's noteworthy that Iran chose Jordan, rather than Israel or Saudi Arabia, as its target for retaliation. This demonstrates Iran's precise intelligence on US military deployments in the Middle East and, to some extent, avoids directly provoking Israel and potentially triggering a larger-scale retaliation. This reflects Iran's consistent strategy of precise calibration in "asymmetric confrontation." Later Sunday evening, Trump issued a scathing statement on social media, threatening to blow Hag Island, Iran's core oil export hub, to smithereens. This statement quickly triggered fluctuations in international oil prices and prompted the market to reassess the escalation limits of the US-Iran conflict. Ian Larby, a maritime security expert and president of Oxboom Global, stated, "From the beginning, most of this war has been tactical rather than strategic. So the question is: why this strike? And why now?" Larby added that for the US, the pressure from sanctions on the Iranian leadership has not been as swift as the US anticipated. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant said last Sunday that the U.S. expects to introduce new sanctions against Iran every week, targeting particularly banking institutions, with Washington intending to completely cut off Iranian-affiliated institutions' access to the dollar system. This "weekly" pace of sanctions reflects the U.S.'s anxiety on the financial front—conventional sanctions are nearing exhaustion, forcing it to maintain pressure through high-frequency, broad-based measures. "Financial pressure may not have deterred Iran's actions as the U.S. had anticipated," Larby said. Iran's recent resumption of military operations may also indicate that it has posed a sufficiently serious threat to U.S. forces and regional interests, forcing the U.S. to launch another strike on Iranian soil. In other words, Iran's tactical initiative is increasing, while the U.S. military response is increasingly resembling a passive response rather than an active shaping of the war situation. Larby added that this U.S. strike is more about breaking the deadlock than a policy shift. "The current situation has stagnated, and the US undoubtedly hopes to change this. However, this is unlikely to change the ongoing blockade, nor will it alter the US's economic 'tactics' used to pressure Iran." This assessment implies that the dual-track pattern of "military friction + financial sanctions" between the US and Iran will not fundamentally change in the short term. Both sides are testing each other's bottom line, but neither is willing to truly cross the threshold of a full-scale war. II. The Hag Island Threat: Verbal Intimidation or a Real Option? Experts believe that Trump's threat to Hag Island will most likely remain verbal. Since the outbreak of the war, this oil terminal has been attacked dozens of times but has never been completely destroyed—this in itself demonstrates that even at the height of the conflict, the warring parties were wary of destroying this facility. Hag Island is the absolute core of Iran's oil exports, housing one of the largest crude oil terminals in the Middle East, through which approximately 90% of Iran's crude oil exports are loaded. If the island were completely destroyed, not only would Iran's oil exports be paralyzed in the short term, but the global crude oil supply would also face a shortfall of millions of barrels per day. An attack would not only destroy vital oil infrastructure and cultural heritage, but also potentially cause catastrophic environmental damage. Threatening the island seems tempting, but actually blowing it up would offer little benefit to the United States. A massive oil spill would cause irreversible damage to the Persian Gulf ecosystem, and the United States, as the dominant force in the Gulf region's security order, would find it difficult to shirk its responsibility for subsequent governance, while also facing significant disadvantage in international public opinion. Iran is unlikely to confront the US military directly, and is more likely to retaliate through proxy forces and disruption of shipping and energy flows. This "asymmetric response" model is an effective strategy that Iran has repeatedly proven effective over the past decades—using relatively low military costs to exert sustained pressure on the economic interests and regional security of the United States and its allies. "This conflict has been fundamentally asymmetric from the beginning," Larbi stated. "Iran has proven that it can use limited actual force to cause substantial and real destruction." For example, the Houthi rebels, who control large areas of Yemen and have guarded the Bab el-Mandeb Strait for nearly a decade, joined the war on Iran's side several weeks ago. The Houthi involvement has once again made Red Sea shipping security a core risk point in the global supply chain. Michael Ratney, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), points out that after the Houthi rebels restricted navigation in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the United States and its regional allies may face a situation where the two major maritime chokepoints on which the vast majority of Gulf oil exports depend—the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—are controlled by Iran and its allies. If both waterways are blocked simultaneously, global energy transport will be forced to detour around the Cape of Good Hope, significantly increasing both costs and time, with ripple effects impacting everything from Asian manufacturing to European heating. "We always assume the Houthis and Iran are in the same camp, but that's not the case," says Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at Rystad Energy. "In the past, they have largely operated independently." This assessment reminds the market that every Houthi action cannot be simply interpreted as a direct instruction from Iran, but the convergence of their strategic objectives is enough to exert substantial coordinated pressure on global shipping. Furthermore, with the focus of multinational naval forces on the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, Somali piracy, which had subsided since 2013, has resurfaced. At least five ships have been hijacked, including an oil tanker seized near Mukalla on August 20. This resurgence of piracy is essentially a "security vacuum" effect created by the significant diversion of regional security resources due to the US-Iran conflict—if this trend continues, it will further drive up shipping insurance costs and have a cumulative impact on global trade costs. III. Oil Price Trends: Military Conflict Remains the Dominant Variable Lalbi believes that "Iran's main focus in its retaliation is likely to be increasing pressure on oil production, energy markets, and global shipping." This assessment is highly consistent with Iran's consistent "energy weaponization" strategy—by creating supply uncertainty and pushing up oil prices, it can both increase its own oil export revenue and send an economic signal to the US and its allies. Military conflict remains the dominant factor influencing oil price trends. Galimberti estimated that approximately 7 million barrels of crude oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz via the Oman Channel last week, escorted by US warships. He described the mechanism as "costly but effective." The "Oman Channel" refers to the safe route for oil tankers to navigate the Strait of Hormuz along Oman's territorial waters under US naval escort—the very existence of this mechanism demonstrates that the security of conventional shipping lanes is no longer sufficient for commercial shipping. The US strike on Larak Island could reverse this trend of restored navigation, introducing new uncertainties to commercial shipping through the waterway. The market is closely watching whether Iran will resort to other means (such as submarine mine-laying, speedboat attacks, and drone strikes) to disrupt shipping after its mine-launching capabilities on Larak Island have been destroyed. "Oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz are expected to decline in the coming days, inevitably leading to a rise in oil prices," said Galimberti. With global crude oil inventories at relatively low levels and OPEC+ capacity remaining limited, any signal of supply disruption from the Strait of Hormuz could be amplified by the market into significant upward pressure on prices. For global economies already struggling to cope with inflation in a high-interest-rate environment, a renewed rise in oil prices will undoubtedly increase the complexity of monetary policy.