Washington signed an enforcement campaign against an Iranian defence-procurement ring that defrauded US firms, even as the war-ending deal stayed unsigned. Treasury then threatened to sanction Oman, its Iran backchannel since 1981. Kuwait invoked Article 51 after an Iranian strike. Iran and the US published incompatible versions of the same draft accord.
Both sides sign coercion this week and defer the deal, in opposite directions.
OFAC designated eight people and five companies on 29 May for impersonating US firms to smuggle bug-detecting hardware to Iran's military, the same week Trump withheld his signature from the war-ending deal.
The US Treasury sanctioned eight people and five firms on 29 May over a scheme that faked US business identities. It tricked American tech vendors into shipping counter-surveillance gear to Iran's defence ministry. Two Dubai fronts moved the goods.
This is the third Iran sanctions track Treasury has opened in two weeks. A $15 million bounty on Revolutionary Guard financial networks runs alongside it.
Scott Bessent warned Oman on 28 May the US would target any actor facilitating Hormuz tolls, and Muscat backed down within the day, leaving Pakistan as the sole active mediator.
QatarUnited StatesTreasury Secretary Bessent warned Oman on 28 May that the US would sanction anyone helping Iran collect Hormuz tolls. The warning followed Iranian media reports of joint Tehran-Muscat control of the strait. Oman denied any toll plan the same day.
Oman has brokered every serious US-Iran back-channel since the 1981 hostage deal. Threatening it leaves Pakistan as the sole mediator Tehran still trusts .
Kuwait made the first formal self-defence claim by a Gulf state in the war after Iran struck Ali Al Salem Air Base on 28 May; CENTCOM struck back near Bandar Abbas and denied a fresh Iranian downing claim.
United StatesIran fired at least one ballistic missile at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait on 28 May. Kuwait shot it down and became the first Gulf state to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter in this war. US Central Command hit a drone-control site near Bandar Abbas in reply.
Article 51 opens the door to Kuwait asking the US for help under their 1994 defence pact. It has not done so yet .
Iran's security council framed the unsigned memorandum as a 10-point Iranian victory including enrichment rights, while the US text demands Iran surrender its enriched uranium first.
United States×2FranceIran's Supreme National Security Council called the unsigned war-ending deal a ten-point Iranian victory on 29 May, with enrichment rights recognised. The US text demands Iran's Highly Enriched Uranium be removed first.
Neither side can sign the other's version without a public climb-down. Pakistan must now find wording both can accept, and no custodian holds the uranium after Trump barred Russia and China .
IRGC forces shot dead Kurdish activist brothers Meysam and Mojtaba Veisi near Dalahu on 28 May, and Faezeh Afshari, aged 30, at Semirom the same day, killings that leave no court record.
IranRevolutionary Guard forces shot dead Kurdish brothers Meysam and Mojtaba Veisi near Dalahu and activist Faezeh Afshari, 30, at Semirom on 28 May. The monitor Hengaw logged the deaths as field killings, not court executions.
Field killings leave no case number, no family notice, and no record monitors can track. That moves the repression off the execution register Amnesty has tallied since February .
Iran's internet reached only 40 per cent of pre-war traffic by 28 May, NetBlocks reported, with Chinese-built hardware for a permanent, switchable blackout already installed.
Iran's internet reached only 40% of pre-war traffic on 28 May, three days after President Pezeshkian ordered it restored following a 90-day blackout. NetBlocks measured the partial recovery .
Cyberspace-council member Mohammad Sarafraz confirmed Iran has installed China-built kill-switch hardware. Pezeshkian can restore the internet but cannot remove the gear that makes the next cut instant. Iranians keep using circumvention tools, expecting another shutdown.
Sideways, with an upward tilt. Kuwait's Article 51 invocation on 28 May raises the legal ceiling for allied involvement without yet triggering it; under the 1994 Kuwait-US bilateral defence pact, a second Iranian ballistic-missile strike would land inside a pre-existing self-defence record rather than requiring a fresh legal basis. The IRGC's false aircraft-downing claims, twice denied by CENTCOM within the same week (the MQ-9 claim on 26 May and the Qeshm aircraft claim on 29 May), signal a propaganda tempo that lowers the domestic political cost inside Iran of additional kinetic actions. The 1 June War Powers Resolution wind-down is the nearest hard trigger: it arrives before any House floor vote, and if Congress fails to authorise or restrict the war by that date, the administration's legal exposure under the 1973 WPR hardened and the pressure on Trump to produce a signed Iran instrument increases sharply. The specific mechanism that would tip escalation downward is an OFAC general licence carving the PGSA out of its 28 May SDN designation; none has been issued as of 30 May.
