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Topic:Unrest, Conflict and War
Smoke rises after an apparent drone strike on Dubai's international airport. (Supplied: Reddit)
I'm ABC global affairs editor Laura Tingle and I'm in Dubai.
Here's my daily update to help you quickly understand what's going on in this war in the Middle East.
Iran war live updates: For the latest news on the Middle East conflict, read our blog.
This war increasingly feels like a contest between an "all hardware, no strategy" United States and a "less hardware, lots of strategy" Iran, at least as far as the war of words is concerned.
The United States continues to talk a big game in terms of how many things it has destroyed in Iran, and is clearly regarded as having the far superior "kinetic" power. But what it doesn't seem to have destroyed yet is Iran's will to fight or its capacity to continue striking at targets in Israel and the wider Gulf region.
If anything, Iran seems to have become even more aggressive in the past couple of days and in the wake of the election of its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
It has been demonstrating that it doesn't actually have to fire lots of missiles — or even hit targets — to cause massive disruption to the global economy and to US President Donald Trump's narrative about how his country is completely winning the war.
Iran launched missiles or drones in the direction of several regional airports on Wednesday, notably Dubai's massive international airport. While it was only debris that landed in Dubai, and luckily only four people were injured, it caused more disruption and was part of a pattern of ongoing attacks that have resulted in airlines increasingly cancelling their services to the regional hub and to other regional destinations.
Iran's threat to banks and the regional offices of big US tech companies hasn't even required a missile or drone strike to have banks close their branches or businesses in financial and tech districts to quietly warn their staff to stay away.
Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz and seen the production of oil and gas reduced in Gulf states, mostly through the threat of strikes: Insurers won't insure ships, and shipping companies won't move their vessels through the strait even if Iran isn't shelling them (though it struck three yesterday).
In a particular humiliation for the US and Gulf countries, The Wall Street Journal reports: "Iran is exporting more oil through the Strait of Hormuz than before the war, showing it is in control of a strategic waterway that it has closed off to the rest of the region's oil producers."
"As Gulf Arab oil producers from Saudi Arabia to Iraq cut production and scramble for new routes that bypass the strait, Iran is conducting business as usual, according to data from tanker-tracking firm Kpler, throwing a financial lifeline to Tehran as it comes under blistering attack from the US and Israel," the newspaper says.
You can keep track of the latest updates from Iran and around the world throughout the day via our live blog.
Thanks for joining me. I'll see you at the same time tomorrow.
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