US strikes Iranian island as oil prices rise again on midterm election day

Overnight strikes near the Strait of Hormuz

The United States attacked targets on the Iranian island of Qeshm, also spelled Gheschm or Keschm, in the Strait of Hormuz during the night to 3 November. According to US government officials cited by the Wall Street Journal, the strikes hit a position of Iran's Revolutionary Guards after a missile was fired from the island at a US aircraft. Iran's state news agency IRNA reported several explosions on the island. The Wall Street Journal described the attack as the latest in a series of limited US strikes carried out in the weeks before 3 November, kept deliberately secret so as not to suggest a return to a larger military operation. US Central Command had not yet issued a statement.

Oil prices and the talks with Tehran

Brent crude fell more than seven percent on Monday, 2 November, on hopes that the eight-month conflict could end. Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days if Washington met its conditions, after a plan relayed via Qatar a week earlier had envisaged seven days. Foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei named an end to the US naval blockade as a precondition for any reopening, and Tehran also demands a smaller US military presence and an end to attacks on Lebanon. Brent touched 103.28 dollars on Monday, after trading near 114 to nearly 117 dollars in the week before 2 November, depending on the report. On Tuesday it returned to around 106 dollars.

Midterms and pump prices

In Germany, Super E10 petrol cost 2.114 euros per litre on average across the country in October, even after the energy tax cut at the start of the month, while diesel stood at 2.289 euros per litre. In the United States, the Iran war has pushed fuel prices sharply higher, and in the Omaha, Nebraska area fuel prices have risen by more than 40 percent since the war began, according to SRF News. Republican candidate Brinker Harding is running in one of the most competitive districts in the country, and his campaign manager Tommy Meisinger acknowledged the problem on the doorstep.

“We have to end this war quickly, the petrol prices have to come down.”

Super E102.114

Diesel2.289

Super E10

2.114 EUR per litre

Diesel

2.289 EUR per litre

Data from the article text

Trump's position and the military buildup

Asked by reporters in Washington on Monday whether he was considering an attack on Iran after the midterms, Donald Trump answered "No" and said he believed Iran wanted a deal. Trump had said he would not attack before 3 November, and regional officials told Berliner Zeitung that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was urging him to strike Iran after the vote. Watson reported that the US has replenished munitions in the Gulf, moved Air Force units to readiness, and deployed an additional Patriot air defence system to Israel. The USS Theodore Roosevelt left San Diego at the end of September for the Middle East, joining two nuclear carriers already in the region, and about 20 US warships operate within US Central Command's area.