Day 140 brief — the war grows a second chokepoint: Iran readies the Houthis to close Bab el-Mandeb, US strikes reach Tehran on the sixth day, Trump sets a one-week fuse on Iran's power plants

Day 140 is the day the war grew a second chokepoint. Iran ordered Yemen's Houthis to stand ready to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait if the US strikes Iranian power infrastructure — with IRGC officers already in Yemen holding the trigger and Houthi missiles and drones reportedly in position — the first time both Hormuz and the Red Sea gateway have been threatened at an operational, not merely rhetorical, level (Foreign Policy, Time, Fox News). CENTCOM ran a sixth consecutive day of strikes that Iranian state media said reached the Tehran area for the first time this round, alongside command centers and air defense from Bandar Abbas to the coast (Euronews, Al Jazeera, The Epoch Times). Iran mounted its widest Gulf retaliation yet — two ballistic-missile waves at a US air base in Jordan and drone attacks on US facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain; Saudi Arabia and Arab states condemned the strikes (Euronews, Arab News). Trump set a one-week fuse — 'next week comes the power plants' — vowing to knock out Iran's power plants and bridges and to 'take Kharg Island... and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like Venezuela'; Iran warned it would 'crush' regional targets and called Hormuz a 'red line' (Washington Examiner, The Hill, CNBC). Yet Brent settled near $84.63, down 0.37%, pricing none of the $150-200 dual-closure tail (Trading Economics, Bloomberg). China called the civilian toll a 'red line'; Russia warned of an 'economic earthquake'; Britain designated the IRGC (Washington Institute, Tasnim). Thirty-day ceasefire probability falls to 8 — the war now has two chokepoints and a one-week infrastructure clock.