“Very clearly militarily, we are stalled,” Republican Representative Pat Harrigan of North Carolina, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said in an interview on Wednesday. “There’s no question about that.”

The latest back and forth has seen Iran hit merchant vessels, spurring the U.S. to strike Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sites that were used for targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz. That led to Iran firing missiles and drones on U.S. bases in the region, including in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain

Iran said the U.S. killed 18 people with its attacks on Tuesday night. It vowed to punish Washington for a strike on a wedding ceremony in the southern city of Sirik, which the Iranian Red Crescent Society said killed at least four people and injured 67.

Energy prices that dipped during a lull in fighting for most of August have risen again, putting more pressure on U.S. President Donald Trump to end a conflict that’s increasingly unpopular with voters ahead of midterm elections in two months.

Brent crude oil has climbed more than 6% this week to $95 a barrel, while U.S. pump prices for diesel are at a four-year high. The jump in energy costs has contributed to a global bond sell-off.

The hostilities have underscored Iran’s continued ability to choke a crucial maritime artery.

The Hormuz strait handled a fifth of oil and liquefied natural gas flows before the war.

Iran and the U.S. seem far from getting back to formal negotiations and their so-called memorandum of understanding, signed in mid-June, expired without the sides making much progress toward a permanent peace deal.

While the tempo of airstrikes and number of casualties remain far below the opening weeks of the war — when the U.S. and Israel were blitzing Iranian cities and the Islamic Republic fired thousands of projectiles at American allies in the region — the low-level conflict is still stretching Washington’s military. And a return to all-out warfare remains a possibility.

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