Jennifer Parker

Look, I think it's quite concerning.

I think the scale of which not only what we've seen today in terms of US strikes against Iran, but Iran strikes across the region, which looks like Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, probably elsewhere.

On the back of what we saw over the weekend, which is Iran and Houthi strikes against Israel, Israel's response that Iran strikes again against Israel, is the intensity of these ceasefire breaches is changing.

Now, since this ceasefire started in early April, there's been a number of breaches.

We've seen attacks on the UAE.

We've seen attacks on shipping, attacks on Kuwait.

We've seen the US naval blockade.

But the intensity in the last couple of days is like nothing we've seen since the ceasefire started.

And so I think there is a concern here about what's driving this.

And I think that Iran seems quite emboldened right now, which is different to what we had seen a couple of weeks ago.

Why?

Well, look, I think there's probably a couple of elements.

We don't exactly know in the public domain what the state is of the negotiations for the interim deal between the US and Iran.

President Trump has said now, I think CNN reported 38 times that we were close to a deal.

It's clear that we're not close to a deal because it hasn't happened.

There is, of course, increasing pressure on the US, both domestically in the lead up to the midterms,

but externally in terms of the impact the pressure Iran has placed on the Strait of Hormuz is having on the global economy.

Clearly, Iran has much more military capability remaining than the US had previously indicated.

So all of those things could be making them feel emboldened.

They may also be a stage that we don't know about in the diplomatic negotiations that's happening behind closed doors where Iran is trying to prove a point about their leverage.