The ceasefire came close enough tonight to show where it snaps. A US proposal - drawn up after Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met Trump at the White House - was carried by al-Zaidi to Tehran, and Iran rejected it, refusing a 'temporary deal' that leaves the final status of the Strait of Hormuz unresolved [1][3]. That is the knot the whole war is tied to: not whether the shooting stops, but who controls the strait when it does [3].
The version that travels fastest - that Iran simply will not make peace - leaves out the rest of the night. By CENTCOM's own count, the United States ran a 13th consecutive night of strikes, hitting military command centers, drone-storage and coastal-surveillance sites, with Iranian media reporting explosions in Ahvaz, Omidiyeh, Bandar Abbas and Qeshm [1].
Both sides are still firing. The IRGC claimed retaliatory strikes on US positions in Kuwait - a warehouse, a Patriot battery, an MQ-9 hangar - and a THAAD radar in Jordan; the host governments have not confirmed the damage [2]. Two people were killed and eleven wounded at Iran's Shalamcheh border crossing [2].
The escalation risk belongs on the record, with its sourcing attached: two Iranian officials told the New York Times that Iran would strike Tel Aviv if Trump follows through on his threats against Iranian infrastructure [1]. That is an attributed threat, not a fact about tonight - but it names the direction the war would take if the strait question is answered with force instead of a deal [1].
What tonight established is narrower and more useful than 'Iran refuses peace.' The two sides were close enough to a pause to reject it over its terms - and the term they could not settle is the strait [1][3]. Oil closed above $100 a barrel for the first time since late May, which is the market pricing exactly that: not a war anyone is winning, but one neither side will end until Hormuz has an owner both can accept [1].
