Iran could unleash ‘kinetic’ response as US tightens economic containment, analyst warns

Iran could launch military strikes as early as this fall, targeting a list of high-value assets to shatter increasing U.S. economic sanctions , national security analysts warned Thursday.

The warning came as the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, reported that two vessels were struck transiting the Strait of Hormuz, according to the United Arab Emirates' state-run WAM news agency.

ADNOC said there were no injuries, and the situation was under control, according to Reuters , as the UAE foreign ministry condemned the Iranian attacks.

IRAN-BACKED HOUTHI THREAT IN RED SEA COULD LEAD TO MAJOR US POLICY SHIFT, ANALYSTS SAY Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that Washington was preparing to take unprecedented economic action against Iran.

"Watch this ⁠space for more announcements ​coming next week because we ​are going to apply measures like we have never been seen in ​the history of economic ​isolation on a country," Bessent said in ‌an ⁠interview on Newsmax .

Behnam Ben Taleblu , a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital Tehran is likely to step up military pressure as Washington intensifies sanctions.

"Come early fall, what we can expect is for them to kinetically push back against Trump's economic policy," Taleblu said.

"If the president is re-embracing economic pressure as a management approach, just like we saw in 2019, then the regime will use kinetic pressure to try to find a way to break out of that economic containment." TRUMP BETS ECONOMIC PRESSURE CAN SQUEEZE IRAN AS REGIME’S OWN FAILURES DEEPEN THE PAIN Ben Taleblu said shrinking oil revenues and the U.S. naval blockade could also drive Tehran to expand its target list across the region.

"This means they would embrace the kinetic tool, and that's how they would get out of the economic containment regime that the U.S. seems to be defaulting to want to put on them," Taleblu added.

"I would say more attacks on ships, potentially more attacks on U.S. bases, potentially more attacks on Arab infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.

And certainly the regime would create a tiered list of targets of what is of immediate value versus what has greater economic value versus what might lead to the U.S. directly or indirectly responding." The warnings come amid a deadlock in talks between Washington and Tehran.

So far, there have been no discussions about extending the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement, a senior Iranian source told Reuters Aug.

12.

Tehran has insisted Washington return to the pact and set a definitive timeline to meet its obligations.