Iran…Trump…War…Evening…7/23/2026…Is Trump thinking about ‘Boots on the Ground’ IN Iran?

“U.S. forces started another night of strikes against Iranian military targets at 6:45 p.m. E.T. today,” U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, said in a statement. That means the strikes would have been happening at 2:15 a.m. local time. The goal, the statement said, was “to hold Iran accountable and diminish threats from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to commercial shipping.”

Official Iranian media reported that U.S. missiles had struck several locations around the capital of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province.

Earlier in the day, Iranian and Iraqi officials said that Iran had rejected a cease-fire proposal from President Trump that was presented by Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi of Iraq. Iran’s top negotiator, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told local news outlets that there was no need for another mediator.

“The problem is not passing messages,” Mr. Ghalibaf said. “The problem is America’s outlook.”

With the cease-fire reached last month seemingly little more than a piece of paper now, and an Iranian ally in Yemen threatening to expand the fight to the Red Sea, the oil markets shuddered on Thursday.

The price of oil hit $100 a barrel for the first time since May after the Iranian allies, the Houthi militants in Yemen, claimed to have struck two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. That stoked fears that, like the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively shut down to traffic, the Red Sea transit route might also be choked off.

The Houthi strikes were the first since the group announced a blockade on Saudi ships this week. The Saudi government confirmed a strike on one ship, but not the other.

Last month, after the preliminary truce between the United States and Iran was reached, the price of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, dipped. But it has inched up again since the fighting resumed, and oil prices are now 40 percent higher than they were before the war started in February.

The steady escalation of the conflict over the past two weeks provided the backdrop for a vote in the House of Representatives on Thursday that, for a second time, directed Mr. Trump to seek Congressional authorization to keep U.S. troops engaged in the war. Mr. Trump effectively ignored a similar rebuke last month, and later on Thursday, Republicans in the Senate blocked the measure from passing.

Here’s what else we’re covering:

• Tracking casualties: A group of Democratic senators urged Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to provide “a full and accurate accounting” of all American troops killed or wounded in the Iran war, saying the Pentagon has reported “inconsistent casualty figures.” Read more ›

• Attacks at border crossings: Two border crossings were attacked on Thursday, according to officials and videos on social media verified by The New York Times. It was not immediately clear who was responsible. The first attack occurred near the Shalamcheh border crossing between Iran and Iraq in Khuzestan Province. Two people were killed, according to Iranian officials. In what appeared to be a retaliatory strike, the Abdali border crossing between Kuwait and Iraq was hit hours later. Read more ›

• Who are the Houthis?: The Houthis are Shiite militants and part of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, along with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Syria and Iraq. The Houthis had limited their involvement in the war for months before disrupting shipping in the Red Sea this week. Read more ›

• Saudi nuclear deal: Mr. Trump said on Thursday that a broad nuclear deal the United States signed with Saudi Arabia would hinge on the kingdom’s willingness to join the Abraham Accords, appearing to condition the agreement on Riyadh’s willingness to open diplomatic relations with Israel. Read more ›

….

ISW…Iran Update Special Report, July 23, 2026

1. The Houthis struck at least one Saudi vessel to enforce their naval blockade of Saudi Arabia on July 22. United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations confirmed on July 23 that the Houthis attacked an unspecified Saudi-flagged tanker with an “unknown projectile.”
2. Iran continues to support the Houthis and their efforts to disrupt maritime traffic in and around the Red Sea. The expansion of the maritime shipping crisis to the Red Sea supports Iranian efforts to degrade the United States’ willingness and ability to continue its strike campaign against Iran and coerce the United States to accept Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.
3. Unspecified Iranian-backed Iraqi militias likely conducted a drone attack on Kuwait’s Abdali border crossing with Iraq on July 23, marking Iran and the Axis of Resistance’s first attack on a regional border crossing since July 11. Iranian media separately reported on July 23 explosions on Kuwait’s Bubiyan Island.
4. The IRGC is highlighting the alleged presence of naval mines in the southern corridor to deter commercial vessels from using this corridor and consolidate Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz.  The IRGC claimed on July 22 that an oil tanker attempting to use the southern route struck a naval mine that disabled the vessel. ISW-CTP has not observed reports of any commercial vessels hitting mines in the southern route at the time of this writing.
5. Russia may be helping Iran increase the accuracy of its targeting of US military sites in the region. Four people familiar with US intelligence told Reuters on July 22 that Russia may be providing Iran with targeting intelligence on US sites and equipment in the region. Russia’s provision of targeting intelligence to Iran would likely improve the accuracy and effectiveness of Iran’s drone and missile attacks.
6. US President Donald Trump told Axios on July 23 that he may decide to expand US strikes against Iran. Trump said that the United States is prepared to launch a “massive attack” against Iran if he orders such an operation….

…

The Guardian…..

• The UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that the Middle East is being pushed to the “edge of the unimaginable” amid mounting fears over the trajectory of the conflict. “The situation is getting out of control. It is teetering on the edge of the unimaginable. The region is being pulled into an ever-widening circle of confrontation. One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” Guterres told a security council meeting. “As this dynamic spreads, the political objectives are becoming increasingly obscured by the confrontation itself.”

• It comes after Donald Trump said he was close to deciding whether to launch “a massive attack” against Iran, on a scale larger than strikes already witnessed during the months-long conflict with Tehran as the US president flounders in his attempts to get a grip on the spiralling crisis in the region. Speaking to Axios, the US president said: “I am considering a massive attack. Bigger than ever before. I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.” He acknowledged that such a decision would have consequences but said he had not yet made a final determination. Israel “would join in two minutes if I ask them to”, he added, before saying: “We don’t need anybody.”

• Trump’s comments followed the earlier threat of “major military punishment” against Iran and the Houthis, after the Iran-backed Yemeni militia’s attacks on two Saudi Arabian oil tankers in the Red Sea. The Houthi attacks threatened the safety of a second major maritime route connecting the Suez canal to the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They also came amid reports that Iran had sent military advisers and drone parts to the Houthis 10 days ago. Trump wrote on social media: “If [the Houthis] do this again, the US will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves.”

• In a separate development, Trump clarified that an announced agreement that the US would help Saudi Arabia with its civilian nuclear programmewould require the kingdom to normalise relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords, a move Saudi Arabia has long resisted until there is demonstrable movement on Palestinian rights and statehood. During Thursday’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, reiterated that the Saudi Arabia nuclear deal is “contingent” on the kingdom on joining the Abraham Accords. “The president is always the final dealmaker, as you know… He has said, if they don’t join the Abraham accords, the deal is off,” she said. It emerged later that Trump had not spoken to Saudi Arabia about the new condition.

• Oil prices once again surged past the symbolic $100 for a barrel of Brent crude, the international benchmark, and amid indications the price could go higher still.