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Por Zachary Cohen, Phil Mattingly, Kevin Liptak y Kylie Atwood, CNN

El Pentágono y el Consejo de Seguridad Nacional subestimaron significativamente la voluntad de Irán de cerrar el Estrecho de Ormuz en respuesta a los ataques militares estadounidenses mientras planificaban la operación en curso, según múltiples fuentes familiarizadas con el asunto.

El equipo de seguridad nacional del presidente Donald Trump no tuvo plenamente en cuenta las posibles consecuencias de lo que algunos funcionarios han descrito como el peor escenario que enfrenta ahora la administración, trasladaron las fuentes.

Si bien funcionarios clave de los Departamentos de Energía y del Tesoro estuvieron presentes en algunas de las reuniones oficiales de planificación sobre la operación antes de que comenzara, de acuerdo con las fuentes, el análisis y los pronósticos de la agencia que serían elementos integrales del proceso de toma de decisiones en administraciones pasadas fueron consideraciones secundarias.

El secretario del Tesoro, Scott Bessent, y el secretario de Energía, Chris Wright, han sido actores clave durante las etapas de planificación y ejecución del conflicto, reconocieron las fuentes.

Sin embargo, la preferencia de Trump por apoyarse en un círculo cerrado de asesores cercanos en la toma de decisiones de seguridad nacional tuvo el efecto de marginar el debate interinstitucional sobre las posibles consecuencias económicas si Irán respondiera a los ataques estadounidenses e israelíes cerrando el estrecho.

Y ahora podrían pasar semanas antes de que los esfuerzos de la administración para aliviar las crecientes consecuencias económicas surtan efecto, según informaron funcionarios el jueves, incluyendo escoltas navales de alto riesgo de petroleros a través del estrecho, que el Pentágono considera actualmente demasiado peligrosas.

El presidente, mientras tanto, ha seguido minimizando la agitación en los mercados energéticos.

La realidad en el estrecho ha dejado a homólogos diplomáticos, exfuncionarios económicos y energéticos de Estados Unidos y ejecutivos de la industria que hablaron con CNN en un estado de confusión e incredulidad.

“Planificar para prevenir este escenario —por imposible que parezca desde hace tiempo— ha sido un principio fundamental de la política de seguridad nacional estadounidense durante décadas”, declaró un exfuncionario estadounidense que sirvió en administraciones republicanas y demócratas. “Estoy estupefacto”.

Ejecutivos del sector naviero han solicitado repetidamente a la Armada estadounidense escoltas militares, pero todas sus peticiones han sido rechazadas.

En reuniones informativas periódicas con participantes del sector en la región, oficiales militares estadounidenses han dejado claro en repetidas ocasiones que no han recibido órdenes para iniciar ninguna operación de escolta y que los riesgos para los activos estadounidenses siguen siendo extremadamente altos, de acuerdo con dos ejecutivos con conocimiento del asunto.

Bessent declaró el jueves a Wilfred Frost, de Sky News, que esos escoltas comenzarían “tan pronto como sea militarmente posible”.

“Eso siempre estuvo en nuestra planificación: existía la posibilidad de que la Marina de Estados Unidos, o quizás una coalición internacional, escoltara a los petroleros”, indicó.

Pero el camino hasta este punto, sostuvieron las fuentes, parece marcar la compleja convergencia de supuestos geopolíticos,

By Luciana Lopez, CNN

(CNN) — The Trump administration on Thursday issued a new license allowing countries to temporarily purchase certain Russian oil products, the same day Brent crude prices settled above $100 per barrel for the first time since August 2022 as the war with Iran drags on.

Temporarily lifting the sanctions on oil from Russia, a major exporter, comes despite previous US pressure on Russian oil companies as part of a bid to stem the flow of cash funding Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

“To increase the global reach of existing supply, @USTreasury is providing a temporary authorization to permit countries to purchase Russian oil currently stranded at sea,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote on social media. “This narrowly tailored, short-term measure applies only to oil already in transit and will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government, which derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction.”

The license, posted to the US Treasury site, only applies to Russian crude or petroleum products loaded on vessels as of March 12. The license authorizes those shipments through April 11.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and ranking member on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations criticized the decision on social media. “As Putin helps Iran target Americans in the Middle East, @POTUS is now filling the Kremlin’s war coffers. Instead of squeezing Russia’s faltering economy, the President’s ill-planned war is giving Putin a windfall while American families face higher prices,” Shaheen wrote.

CNN previously reported that the US has granted Indian refiners a 30-day waiver to buy Russian oil currently stranded at sea. Bessent, at the time, said the move was “to enable oil to keep flowing into the global market.”

The war, now in its second week, has seen the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil travels, effectively closed to tanker travel. Oil prices have jumped, and analysts, economists and traders have warned that even a rapid end to the war won’t necessarily mean a quick re-opening of the strait.

As the energy shortage worsens, countries have scrambled to stem the economic impact by curbing consumption, capping fuel prices and tapping into emergency oil reserves.

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By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — Oil prices are still surging – and stocks falling – as the US-Israel war with Iran nears the end of a second week, after Tehran’s new supreme leader vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. Global leaders’ attempts to reassure markets and release emergency oil reserves are yet to reverse those trends.

Casualties are mounting, with a French soldier in Iraq and two academics in Lebanon among those killed in the past day as well as a US Air Force refuelling tanker carrying at least five crew lost over western Iraq.

Israel, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah continued trading strikes overnight into Friday.

Here’s what to know on day 14.

What are the main headlines?

• Oil costs: The US government on Thursday issued a new license allowing countries to purchase certain Russian oil products, the same day Brent crude prices settled above $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022. That will be a boost to the Kremlin as it pursues its own war in Ukraine. Earlier, Iran warned the world to get ready for oil at $200 a barrel.
• Further threats: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned it would set the region’s oil and gas “on fire” if Iranian energy infrastructure and ports are attacked. Tehran has been actively targeting international cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz since it was attacked by the US and Israel, as well as fuel tanks and oil fields in neighboring countries. There are dozens of oil tankers trapped in the Persian Gulf, at risk of causing an oil spill if struck, warned Greenpeace.
• Supreme leader’s message: Mojtaba Khamenei issued his purported first message as Iran’s new supreme leader on Thursday, warning that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed as a “tool of pressure” – though the Iranian ambassador to the UN claimed otherwise just hours later.
• Markets down: Stocks opened lower Friday morning, tracking falls in global markets overnight.

What’s happening on the ground?

• Strikes on Israel: A fresh wave of missiles were launched at Israel early Friday, wounding dozens of people and damaging buildings in the country’s north. Earlier, Iran said it was firing another wave of missiles at Israel, and that Hezbollah had launched a simultaneous attack from southern Lebanon, according to Iranian state media.
• Tehran and Beirut targeted: Heavy explosions were felt in several parts of Tehran on Friday morning, Iranian state media said. Israel also expanded operations targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon late Thursday night, with strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Mass evacuation orders in Lebanon could push the number of displaced people to more than 1 million within the next few days, one expert said.
• Mounting casualties: The toll of civilian deaths and injuries continues to climb, with two academics killed by an Israeli airstrike at a Lebanese university on Thursday, and three Red Crescent aid workers in Iran wounded by an attack early Friday. Close to 2,000 have been killed in Iran and Lebanon

By Emma Tucker, Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

(CNN) — A pair of attacks over 700 miles apart on Thursday struck at the heart of community safe havens, leaving shocked Americans with an uneasy sense of security.

First, a deadly shooting being investigated as terrorism devastated a Virginia university in a military town. Hours later, a targeted vehicle-ramming attack on a Michigan synagogue left congregants shaken to their core.

The shooting at Virginia’s Old Dominion University was committed by a veteran who was a convicted ISIS supporter. The attacker was able to kill one person and injure two others before a classroom of ROTC students subdued and killed him, the FBI said.

Then, a vehicle rammed into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township in an attack the FBI said targeted the Jewish community, carried out by a US citizen who was born in Lebanon, the Department of Homeland Security said. The synagogue had been on high alert for potential violence in the weeks before the building became engulfed in flames after the suspect drove through it with a rifle and a large number of explosives, officials said.

Though the motive in the attack is still unknown, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said there is a clear “nexus” between the Iran war and the attack, adding it’s no coincidence the suspect targeted a synagogue named Temple Israel.

The attacks are among four acts of violence that have rattled Americans’ collective consciousness in recent weeks. The two attacks on Thursday came just days after two terror suspects were accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the New York City mayor’s home Saturday in what authorities have described as an ISIS-inspired attack

Less than two weeks earlier in Austin, Texas, a shooter wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the Iranian flag killed three people and injured over a dozen others in the city’s bustling entertainment district. Though the motive is still under investigation, authorities are investigating whether the shooter was inspired in part by US and Israeli strikes on Iran that weekend, multiple law enforcement officials briefed on the case said.

The country is in a “heightened threat environment” since the onset of the war with Iran, a “state sponsor of terrorism,” said Jeh Johnson, Homeland Security secretary under President Obama. He urged people to remain “vigilant.”

Here are the latest developments in the two Thursday attacks:

Michigan synagogue ramming

• Suspect identified: The suspect in the synagogue ramming attack has been identified by DHS as 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, who was born in Lebanon and became a US citizen in 2016.
• Officers sent to hospital: At least 30 law enforcement officers from various agencies were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and a security guard, one of several on scene who stopped the attack, was hit by the vehicle and is expected to recover, officials said.
• Possible tie to Israeli airstrike: Authorities are investigating reports that the man told people he had multiple family members who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon in recent days, multiple law enforcement officials told CNN.

Virginia university shooting

• Shooter identified as convicted ISIS supporter: The gunman was identified by the FBI as 36-year-old Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, a former Virginia National Guard member who pleaded guilty to attempt