U.S. officials face growing concern about Iran war escalating amid energy facility attacks

Ongoing Iranian attacks on oil and gas facilities around the Persian Gulf on Thursday intensified the war’s effects on global energy supplies, as President Trump chastised Israel for striking a key Iranian gas field, and other countries expressed growing fears that the conflict was spiraling out of control.

Saudi Arabia has said it could respond forcefully if Iran continues to attack the kingdom’s facilities and the price of oil soars again.

Trump said Israel acted “out of anger” and without the knowledge of the United States when it attacked the “extremely important and valuable” South Pars field, the world’s largest natural gas deposit. Writing on social media, Trump said there would be “NO MORE ATTACKS” unless Iran continued to strike liquefied natural gas fields in Qatar.

However, if Iranian attacks continue, the United States “will massively detonate the entire South Pars gas field with force and power that Iran has never seen or seen before,” Trump wrote.

The president’s remarks come as Iran’s intensifying attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure shake and anger U.S. allies in the region and send shockwaves through the global economy. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, has reached $118 per barrel, an increase of more than 60% since the start of the conflict.

The strikes further threaten a global energy supply already eroded by Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is normally transported.

Despite repeated assurances from Trump and other U.S. leaders that the United States would quickly wipe out Iran’s mine-laying, missile and drone capabilities in the region, Iranian attacks have continued on this vital waterway — with one ship set on fire Thursday off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and a second damaged off the coast of Qatar.

On the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, a Saudi refinery on the Red Sea, designed to bypass the strait, was hit by an Iranian drone.

The strikes also added to uncertainty about the Trump administration’s control over the trajectory, scope and timing of the conflict.

In recent days, Trump has made contradictory comments on the Strait. He asked his allies to help safeguard the strait, but then said the United States had not helped him – after his allies rejected his calls.

On Thursday, he reiterated that message during an event with Japanese leaders at the White House, saying it would be “appropriate” for European countries, Japan and other U.S. allies to help defend the strait, but that it would be unnecessary. “We don’t need anything,” he said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in earlier remarks Thursday, doubled down on the administration’s repeated assertions that the war is going perfectly as planned and that the United States is in no danger of entering another “endless war” or quagmire in the Middle East.

Hegseth said U.S. officials “would not want to set a definitive timetable” for ending the war, adding that the American people should ignore all the “noise” about “widening” the conflict.

But he spoke as that noise became a refrain in the face of the latest Iranian strikes.

French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking before the European Union summit, condemned what he called a “reckless” escalation of the conflict and called for negotiations.

Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit called Iranian attacks on Gulf infrastructure a “dangerous escalation.” Authorities in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, used the same phrase to describe Iran’s nighttime attacks on some of their energy facilities.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Thursday that trust between his government and Tehran “has been completely broken”, adding that Riyadh “reserves the right to take military action if necessary”.

“The kingdom and its partners have significant capabilities, and the patience we have shown is not unlimited,” he said after a meeting of foreign ministers in Riyadh. He did not say when that patience would run out.

The kingdom’s air defenses have intercepted at least 457 drones, 40 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. During the same period, the UAE shot down 1,714 drones, 334 missiles and 15 cruise missiles, according to Emirati officials.

In Qatar, state-owned QatarEnergy said a fire at the Ras Laffan LNG facility – the world’s largest LNG export facility and where production had already been halted – started after an Iranian missile strike and caused “significant” damage.

In Kuwait, the Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery – one of the largest in the Middle East – and the neighboring Mina Abdullah refinery both caught fire after drone attacks, officials said.

In Israel, millions of people rushed to shelter as more than half a dozen waves of Iranian attacks targeted large parts of the country.

Meanwhile, Hegseth said the United States was preparing to launch its “largest strike program to date” against Iran on Thursday. He said the military would ask Congress for billions more to continue fighting the war because “it takes money to kill the bad guys.”

The Reuters news agency reported on Wednesday that the Trump administration was considering deploying thousands of US troops to Iran, citing four unnamed sources.

In response, a White House official told the Times that no decision has been made about sending ground troops to Iran, but that Trump is keeping all his options open to achieve his goals in Iran, including destroying its ballistic missile capabilities and ensuring that it cannot develop a nuclear weapon.

The United States took steps Thursday to stabilize the oil market.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the United States could soon lift sanctions on about 140 million barrels of Iranian oil currently “on the water” in tankers, which he said should inject supply into the market and curb soaring prices. “Depending on how you count it, that’s 10 days to two weeks of supply,” Bessent said.

The administration is also considering a further unilateral release of the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve to further lower prices as U.S. reserves fall to their lowest levels since the 1980s.

If the sanctions were lifted, it would provide a massive financial lifeline for the Iranian government, allowing Tehran to reap billions in revenue that it could use to finance its ongoing fight against the United States and Israel.

Iran, in turn, has threatened further retaliation if its energy infrastructure is further attacked – with an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesperson saying the response to future attacks would be “much harsher”.

“We warn the enemy that you have made a major mistake by attacking the energy infrastructure of… Iran,” the spokesperson said in a statement carried by Iran’s ISNA news agency.

“If this is repeated, future attacks on your energy infrastructure and those of your allies will not stop until they are completely destroyed,” the statement said.

The New York-based Soufan Center said in a research note that the Israeli strike on South Pars – which directly threatened Iran’s electricity supply – marked a “clear expansion of the conflict”.

“Israel’s choice of targets in this war has focused heavily on institutions, leaders and infrastructure,” the think tank said. “He now seeks to exert additional pressure on the regime by making the living conditions of civilians intolerable.”

Amid the tensions, Gulf leaders have also expressed growing discontent with Washington.

On Wednesday, Oman Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, a central figure in U.S.-Iran negotiations, called the war a “catastrophe” and said the Trump administration’s “biggest miscalculation” was “getting dragged into this war in the first place.”

Albusaidi added that Iran’s retaliation against the Gulf states “was an inevitable, albeit deeply regrettable and completely unacceptable, outcome” that “was probably the only rational option available” to Iranian leaders facing an existential war.

“America’s friends have a responsibility to tell the truth,” he said. “It’s an uncomfortable truth to say, because it involves showing the extent to which America has lost control of its own foreign policy. But it needs to be said.”

Rector reported from Colorado and Bulos from Beirut. Times sjob writer Gavin J. Quinton contributed to this report.