← WW3 RISK TRACKER / THEATER: Iran War
Iran – Israel, USA, Gulf conflict
- Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution extending independent monitoring of international sanctions on Iran. Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 17 Sep 2026Russia, China veto UN mandate to monitor Iran sanctionsAL-MONITOR: The Pulse of The Middle East · 17 Sep 2026Russia, China end mandate for independent monitoring of UN sanctions on Iran
- The United States Treasury Department sanctioned Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank for processing transactions associated with Tehran's Hormuz Safe maritime insurance scheme. AL-MONITOR: The Pulse of The Middle East · 17 Sep 2026US sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank over Hormuz payments
- South Korean President Lee Jae Myung rejected United States pressure to deploy South Korean military forces to the Strait of Hormuz. World news | The Guardian · 18 Sep 2026South Korea will not send military to support US war on Iran, defying Trump pressureAl Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 18 Sep 2026South Korea says US-North Korea talks possible, rules out Hormuz deployment
- United States authorities granted visas permitting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to attend the United Nations General Assembly. BBC News · 17 Sep 2026US to allow Iran delegation to attend UN meetings in New York as war passes half-year mark
- Iranian Foreign Ministry officials ordered a Swedish diplomat to leave Tehran following Sweden's previous expulsion of an Iranian diplomat. Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 17 Sep 2026Iran expels Swedish diplomat in retaliatory move
UN Sanctions Monitoring
Russia and China vetoed a United States-sponsored Security Council resolution to extend the independent panel monitoring sanctions on Iran. Simultaneously, the United States Treasury Department designated Iranian cryptocurrency exchange BitBank for facilitating payments through Tehran's digital maritime insurance system. Al Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 17 Sep 2026Russia, China veto UN mandate to monitor Iran sanctionsAL-MONITOR: The Pulse of The Middle East · 17 Sep 2026US sanctions Iranian crypto exchange BitBank over Hormuz paymentsAL-MONITOR: The Pulse of The Middle East · 17 Sep 2026Russia, China end mandate for independent monitoring of UN sanctions on Iran
Coalition Posture and Visas
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung refused United States requests to send military units to the Strait of Hormuz, citing domestic opposition. In Washington, federal authorities granted visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi for the United Nations General Assembly in New York. World news | The Guardian · 18 Sep 2026South Korea will not send military to support US war on Iran, defying Trump pressureAl Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 18 Sep 2026South Korea says US-North Korea talks possible, rules out Hormuz deploymentBBC News · 17 Sep 2026US to allow Iran delegation to attend UN meetings in New York as war passes half-year mark
Diplomatic Positioning and Economic Strain
President Donald Trump publicly evaluated renewed large-scale strike options against Iranian targets alongside claims of direct communications. Concurrently, energy supply disruptions linked to the Strait of Hormuz closure generated rising fuel costs across European and South Asian economies. AL-MONITOR: The Pulse of The Middle East · 17 Sep 2026Analysis-As Iran war grinds on, Trump to face skeptical world leaders at UNIran International · 17 Sep 2026Trump weighs major Iran escalation as China steps up diplomatic pushAl Jazeera – Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera · 18 Sep 2026‘My children did not attack Iran’: 2bn South Asians suffer from distant war
Assessment
Competing pressure campaigns, international resistance to coalition expansion, and unresolved Hormuz shipping disruptions maintain critical operational risks across the theater.
- 2026-09-18
Russia and China veto UN resolution extending Iran sanctions monitoring
Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution to extend independent monitoring of international sanctions on Iran.
- 2026-09-12
Drone strike from Iraq shuts down Saudi East-West pipeline
Unmanned aerial vehicles launched from Iraq struck Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, forcing a temporary shutdown of the crude oil conduit.
- 2026-09-10
IAEA Board of Governors reports Iran to UN Security Council for non-compliance.
The 35-nation IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution referring Iran to the UN Security Council for non-proliferation non-compliance for the first time in 20 years. The action follows over a year of denied IAEA inspector access to Iranian nuclear installations.
4 more
- 2026-09-09
U.S. forces destroy five Iranian oil tankers following IRGC missile attacks on warships
U.S. Central Command destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers near Kharg Island and in the Gulf of Oman after IRGC forces launched ballistic missiles at a U.S. Navy warship. Iranian forces retaliated by firing ballistic missiles at a U.S. military base in Jordan and attacking commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz.
- 2026-09-08
Houthi missile strikes target southern Saudi oil facilities, wounding 73
Yemeni Houthi forces launched missile strikes targeting oil facilities across southern Saudi Arabia, wounding 73 people.
- 2026-08-31
U.S. and Iranian forces resumed direct strike exchanges following a month-long lull.
U.S. forces struck Iranian launcher positions on Larak Island to prevent sea-mine operations, triggering Iranian retaliatory drone and missile strikes targeting U.S. base locations in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
- 2026-08-24
US Treasury announces secondary sanctions campaign targeting Iranian trade
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a secondary sanctions campaign targeting third-party entities conducting trade with Iran.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Is Iran at war with Israel and the United States?
There is no declared war. Iran and Israel have exchanged direct military strikes, United States forces are engaged in the region, and the pressure extends to sanctions and to shipping through the Gulf. The index sits high because that fighting is real, not because war has been declared. Iran, Israel and the United States all appear as conflict parties in Geneva Academy's worldwide classification — the strikes register as interstate hostilities even without a declared war. The index reads 75.7/100 as of 1 January 1970 (full-scale war); above 50 it grades the fighting itself rather than the risk of it.
How dangerous is the Iran and Israel, USA, Gulf situation right now?
The index reads 75.7/100 — full-scale war. The scale is anchored on 22 historical episodes from 1914 to 2005, so the number means the same thing from one theater to the next. It is a measurement of what is reported, not a forecast.
How is the Iran and Israel, USA, Gulf risk index calculated?
By fixed formula from open-source reporting: events are extracted and graded by how well evidenced they are, scored across weighted factors, and the model never picks the number. How the index works, and what it does not measure, is explained at wwiii.report/methodology.
How often is this updated?
Every day. The report is rebuilt from that day's reporting and the index re-judged from it, and a fall is published only once the evidence confirms it.
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
Timeline events — hover the chart to read them
One 0–100 scale for the whole conflict. 0–49 is escalation before war; 50–100 is active war and how far it has gone.
50 is not a threshold the number can cross on its own. Which side a theater sits on is decided by whether verified belligerents are fighting there, so war onset always moves the score up across 50 — the number never declares a war by climbing.
It is a stage, not a probability: 42 is not a 42% chance of war. Below 50 it grades movement toward war, above 50 the war itself.
Why it moved, under the chart, names what changed in the latest move: the day’s readings — strikes, casualties, talks — and, when the conflict’s stage was re-judged, what was graded differently and the events behind it. Open it for the detail.
Re-judged from open reporting by fixed formula — the model never picks a number — and a fall publishes only once the evidence confirms it. A dot on the line is a day the stage itself moved. How it is made →
Direction — which way the week pushed. Severity — where the index sits. Connections — how much of the rest a shock here reaches. Cascade — that reach combined with how ready this theater is to go off.
The index reads the state of the conflict, not the volume of news. Each run grades the factors listed below against fixed rubrics, and the score follows by formula.
So a dramatic headline moves nothing unless it changes a grade. A theater already graded for recurring incursions absorbs one more without moving — it is priced in.
Open How this was measured for every grade, its movement since the last run, and the events behind it. Full construction →
A different measurement from the score above, from a different source. This line counts how much of the world's news reports conflict between these two states, against their own long-run normal: 100 is normal, 200 is twice the usual level.
It is computed mechanically from the GDELT Project's open event stream every 15 minutes and never touches the assessed index above — when both move together, that agreement is the signal. A day with too few events shows no reading rather than a guess. Click the chart for the full history.
Data: the GDELT Project.