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From the newsroom of the Washington Post, it's Robert Samuels from the Washington Post.

Posts Sarah Kaplan. Hi, this is Ella Hayes, I'm with the Washington Post.

Hey, nor are you. This is Post Reports. I'm Martine Powers.

It's Monday, June 17th.

Today, increasing global tensions with Iran, a once in a generation expedition to the Arctic,

and a significant political death in Egypt.

What happened last week to set off the standoff between the US and Iran?

Well, tensions between Iran and the United States had been quite high for some time.

Riknoaik is a foreign affairs correspondent for the Post based in Berlin.

Last week, there were two suspected attacks against tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

It is the assessment of the United States government that the Islamic Republic of Oroh

is responsible for the attacks that occurred in the Gulf of Oman today.

And that is a very strategically important stretch of water near the straight of Hormuz.

Iran is lashing out because the regime wants are successful, maximum pressure campaign lifted.

One of the tankers was Japanese, which is interesting because of course, why do Americans

care about Japanese or invest in this? But what it really comes down to is global trade flows.

And the straight of Hormuz, which is in that region, Iran has threatened to block that quite a few times.

The United States would also be impacted if that ever happened.

If Iran was indeed attacking ships in that region because it would hurt global trade flows,

...