As predictable as the day of the week ending in the letter Y, Iran decided to test if President Trump was willing to smack them back after a drone attack in the Strait of Hormuz.

What was the end goal here? Is Iran testing the limits of the Memorandum of Understanding (which is a mess on its face and in the implementation)? Are they just being petty assholes who are looking to show up the United States? Are they hoping to live in limbo while getting money out of deep freeze to rebuild their conventional weapons? Or is President Trump giving them just enough rope to hang themselves during the 60 days that the MOU is supposed to last?

At the moment, we are all living in a form of limbo. The president very much wants Iran to cooperate, but this MOU, on its face, sucks, and it will continue to suck no matter how much the administration wants to make it work. Now, would it be better for the economy, and for Republicans in the midterms, if something like the MOU stuck and a status quo was achieved once again? Probably, and President Trump is a pragmatist. However, we don’t always get what we want, and a country run by a military junta posing as a theocratic government wishing for the apocalypse is not to be trusted to make good, safe, or practical decisions.

So Iran decided to drone strike a cargo ship flying a Singaporean flag in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked a Singapore-flagged cargo ship Thursday in the Strait of Hormuz, according to two senior U.S. officials, testing the deal signed last week by the U.S. and Iran to end the fighting and reopen the vital shipping lane.

The attack, which damaged the ship’s bridge but left no casualties, according to U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, took place near the coast of Oman hours after the Iranian paramilitary’s navy warned ships not to use routes through the waterway that the regime hadn’t sanctioned.

President Trump was, understandably, not happy with this development.

And so the hammer dropped.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Friday that American forces conducted military strikes on Iran in a “powerful response” to an Iranian drone attack on a commercial ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian drone storage facilities and coastal radar sites were hit by US warplanes in retaliation for the Thursday attack on the M/V Ever Lovely, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship.

“The unwarranted aggression against commercial shipping by Iranian forces clearly violated the ceasefire,” read a statement released by CENTCOM. “Furthermore, Iran’s dangerous behavior undermined freedom of navigation as commerce increasingly flows through the vital international trade corridor.”

“CENTCOM forces continue to provide safe passage coordination and support to commercial vessels transiting the strait,” the statement continued. “The U.S. military remains present and vigilant to ensure all aspects of the agreement with Iran are adhered to, obeyed, and in full force and effect.”

The CENTCOM statement was followed by a statement on X by Vice President Vance, who has been quite the cheerleader of the MOU. Fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me? Perhaps.

Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it. If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone.

But violence will be met with violence. https://t.co/VWnBS1PWaV

— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 26, 2026

Naturally, the IRGC was pissed off.

Multiple reports indicated several explosions had been heard in the coastal city of Sirik, ahead of CENTCOM’s announcement.

In a statement shared by the state-run ISNA news agency, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps vowed that the “aggression will not go unanswered, and our response will be swift and decisive at a time and place of our choosing.”

“Any new foolishness will be met with a harsh response,” the IRGC warned.

Is this what we have to look forward to for the remainder of the time the MOU is nominally in effect? Iran will fire off rockets or drones, the United States will strategically retaliate while still saying that nothing has changed on our side in regards to the terms of the MOU, and Iran will threaten and complain, then take aim at something else again? Or will Iran attempt to escalate via a proxy like Hezbollah?

That might be harder after yesterday.

The U.S. is proud to be a part of today's historic trilateral framework agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

There is more work to be done, but we're taking meaningful steps toward a future of peace, prosperity, and mutual coexistence. pic.twitter.com/68IAWgjn4b

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) June 26, 2026

Israel and Lebanon are the inheritors of ancient civilizations that date back to the time of the Bible. These two countries produce some of the world’s most entrepreneurial people and share some of the most beautiful coastlines on Earth. But for decades, these countries have been dragged into war by terrorist militias and proxies that have undermined Lebanon’s sovereignty, launched senseless attacks on Israel, and exported chaos across the entire Middle East.

Hizballah, Iran’s most dangerous proxy, has repeatedly dragged Lebanon into devastating wars against the will of its government and people, most recently this March. It has built a vast military infrastructure inside Lebanon, fired tens of thousands of rockets and drones at Israeli cities, and played a key role in the devastation of Syria. Hizballah also plots attacks against Americans, supports drug trafficking networks that fuel violence in our hemisphere and inside the United States, and directly threatens American citizens and interests around the world.

Today, the Governments of Israel and Lebanon made a bold decision to agree to a framework that builds a realistic path out of endless conflict. This agreement establishes a clear and structured process to restore Lebanon’s sovereignty, disarm Hizballah and dismantle its terrorist infrastructure, and enable Israel to return to its borders once that threat to its citizens is removed. It also creates a trilateral Military Coordination Group for Lebanon (MCG4L), facilitated by the United States, allowing the two sides to implement this Framework. For Lebanon, this Framework provides a genuine pathway out of a long crisis. For Israel, it creates a verifiable path to removing the persistent threat on its northern border.

If Lebanon, with the help of Israel, is finally able to stand up to Hezbollah and expel the group from the country, that will limit and cripple the reach that Iran has had up until now. THIS is the threat that Iran fears – losing control of proxy groups that can do their dirty work for them. President Trump ordered a strike in response to open aggression in the Strait of Hormuz, but this diplomatic achievement between Israel, Lebanon, and the United States is likely what really has the IRGC’s panties in a wad. Now, we will have to keep waiting and watching to see if Iran tries again – and how far the Trump administration is willing to go to slap them down.

Featured image: President Donald Trump on March 5, 2026, official White House photo by Daniel Torok on the White House Flickr account, cropped, public domain