The United States and Iran are trading strikes again. The ceasefire was a pause, not a peace.

For the first time in weeks, American and Iranian forces are shooting at each other in the open. Washington says Iranian units targeted U.S. bases after earlier American attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran says it is answering, not starting. President Trump says more is coming, and that Iran will be hit hard. The strait, which carries a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil, does not issue a correction.

Vice President Vance told cameras the fight is not a “war,” a word the White House would like to keep off the midterm ballot. The missiles do not consult the vocabulary. Jordan helped intercept incoming fire. Commercial captains are back on two radios: one for the weather, one for the navy. Insurance desks in London moved before any diplomat finished a paragraph.

A war that cannot be named still burns tankers.

A peace was signed in June. By September the page is thinner than the smoke. Households will meet this story as a number on a pump and a sentence on a crawl. The World desk’s job is the other sentence: a ceasefire that cannot keep a tanker unharmed is not a policy. It is an interval.