Seven consecutive nights. Jask, Bushehr, Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, Yazd, Qeshm Island—the target list reads like a geography final with no good answers. CENTCOM calls them “degradation operations.” The bridges into Bandar Abbas are cut. Hormozgan counts three dead and a tunnel gone. The Pentagon says the strikes are degrading Iranian capability. Tehran says they are hardening Iranian resolve. Both can be true.

The return fire lands on countries that didn’t start this. Friday, IRGC missiles hit Kuwait’s Shuaiba desalination complex—fire chewed through power generation units while crews fought it for hours. Ninety percent of Kuwait’s drinking water comes from desal. That number turns every missile into a different kind of weapon. Ali Al Salem took drones. Bahrain took drones. Jordan’s Azraq base took enough to injure US service members, per CBS. Shrapnel from an Al Udeid intercept wounded four in Qatar, one of them a child.

The Muscat room is still booked. Talks open tomorrow with Oman, Qatar and Pakistan mediating. A senior IRGC adviser floated a “full-scale offensive” if strikes continue through the weekend—the kind of statement designed to be walked back or built upon, depending on what the room in Muscat produces. File it where you file every pre-negotiation threat.

Brent pushed past $88. Hormuz is still closed. The war is 141 days old and the people paying the highest price per capita are the ones whose only offense was geography.

Some rounds you don’t order. They just show up.