On Monday, Iran did not pause negotiations. Tehran’s negotiating team stopped exchanging messages with the United States through mediators entirely, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency. What replaced the diplomatic channel was something harder: a plan to completely seal the Strait of Hormuz and activate a second front at the Bab El Mandeb Strait off Yemen’s coast.

Tasnim reported that “there will be no talks until Iran and the resistance’s views on this matter are met,” referring to what the agency described as the need for “the immediate cessation of the Zionist regime’s aggressive and brutal army operations in Gaza and Lebanon.”

The announcement caps a volatile 48 hours in which a three-month-old war strained an already fragile ceasefire from every direction.

A Weekend of Escalation

The US military struck radar and drone control sites near the Iranian city of Geruk and on Qeshm Island over the weekend. Central Command described the strikes as “measured and deliberate” responses to Iran’s shootdown of an American MQ-1 Predator drone operating over what the US said were international waters. “US fighter aircraft swiftly responded by eliminating Iranian air defenses, a ground control station, and two one-way attack drones that posed clear threats to ships transiting regional waters,” Central Command said in a statement.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retaliated, claiming to have struck a US air base used to launch attacks on Iranian infrastructure. Kuwait confirmed the incident when its air defenses opened fire on incoming drones and missiles. Central Command said it “successfully intercepted two Iranian ballistic missiles targeting American forces based in Kuwait,” adding that “these missiles were immediately defeated and no American personnel were harmed.” A separate Iranian strike last week left four US service members and three contractors with minor injuries, according to a US official who spoke to CBS News. All seven returned to duty within 24 hours.

The Lebanon Connection

Iran’s decision to cut the diplomatic cord was not triggered by these direct US-Iran exchanges alone. The catalyst was Israel — and Tehran made certain the linkage was unmistakable.

“Violation on one front is a violation of the ceasefire on all fronts. The US and Israel are responsible for the consequences of any violation,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi wrote on X on Monday. His statement came the same day Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the Israeli military to strike what their joint statement called “terror targets in the Dahiyeh district of Beirut” — a Hezbollah stronghold in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs. Israel cited “repeated violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon by the terrorist organization Hezbollah.”

The Lebanese government reports that Israel’s offensive has killed more than 3,370 people and displaced more than 1.2 million since March 2. The UN Security Council called an emergency session on Monday at France’s request, with President Emmanuel Macron stating that “nothing justifies the major escalation under way in south Lebanon.”

Iran has maintained throughout the war that any ceasefire with the United States must include an end to Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei reiterated Monday that “a ceasefire in Lebanon is an essential condition for any deal aimed at ending the war.” Top Iranian negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf described “the naval blockade and escalation of war crimes in Lebanon” as “clear evidence of US noncompliance with the ceasefire.”

The geometry matters: a US-Iran truce is inseparable from the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Monday’s announcement elevates that linkage from a diplomatic preference to a hard precondition, and it widens the war’s scope to include whatever Iran’s allies in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon choose to do in coordination.

What Complete Closure Would Mean

The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively blocked since the war’s early weeks. Roughly 3,000 ships normally pass through each month. That number has dwindled to a handful per day, according to the BBC. Brent crude briefly exceeded $126 a barrel before easing — the highest since 2022. Average US gasoline prices stand at $4.34 per gallon, roughly 46 percent above pre-war levels, according to AAA.

What Iran described on Monday was not the current degraded throughput but a plan for total, coordinated closure. Tasnim reported that Iran and what it called the “Resistance Front” — including allies in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq — have “set an agenda to completely block the Strait of Hormuz and activate other fronts, including the Bab El Mandeb Strait,” to “punish” Israel and its supporters. If the Houthis enforce a parallel closure at Bab El Mandeb, the narrow passage controlling sea traffic toward the Suez Canal, two of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints would be constricted at once.

Roughly 82 percent of fossil fuels transiting the Strait of Hormuz in 2022 were bound for Asian countries, according to the US Energy Information Administration. China purchases an estimated 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports and has called the US naval blockade of Iranian ports “dangerous and irresponsible.” The International Monetary Fund warned in April that the global economy risked recession if the war and elevated energy prices persisted. The damage is already spreading: Southeast Asian nations dependent on tourism are cancelling flights as jet fuel costs climb during what should be peak travel season.

The Deal on the Table

Before the channel went silent, the two sides had been negotiating a memorandum of understanding mediated by Pakistan. President Donald Trump edited the proposed text for a third time on Friday, according to a source with knowledge of the talks who spoke to CBS News. The changes focused on the Strait of Hormuz and the removal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium. Trump said Friday that Iran has agreed to “no nuclear weapons,” calling it “the one guarantee that I have to have.” He also told Lara Trump in an interview that he was “in no hurry” to close a deal.

The broad outlines include a 60-day cessation of violence, a framework for renewed nuclear negotiations, and potential sanctions relief that could give Tehran access to billions in frozen assets. But Iran’s parliament speaker captured the trust gap. “The soldiers of the diplomatic battlefield have no trust in the words and promises of the enemy,” Ghalibaf said, according to Tasnim. “What matters to us is tangible achievements that we must obtain, in exchange for which we will fulfil our commitments.”

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Sunday that even if a deal were reached, it could take two months for oil supplies to normalize. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is being drawn down at a record pace — 9.1 million barrels in a single week in late May, according to the Energy Information Administration, surpassing the previous record of 8.6 million set earlier that month.

The diplomatic corridor that might have interrupted the escalation cycle has gone silent. Whether it reopens — or whether the two-front blockade Tehran described on Monday becomes the conflict’s new baseline — depends on calculations in Washington, Tehran, and Jerusalem that are no longer being shared through mediators.

Sources