Trump confirms a U.S. strike on Iran, but bets say the truce held through Nov. 2

President Donald Trump has confirmed a U.S. strike on Iran, saying so in a Fox telephone interview on Tuesday. The comments go beyond earlier unofficial reporting, including a Wall Street Journal account, citing U.S. officials, of a strike on Iran's Qeshm Island. ABC News described limited airstrikes, and an official said they answered an Iranian attack on a U.S. aircraft.

Traders still treat a U.S.-Iran ceasefire lasting through Nov. 2 as certain, though the question has not been officially resolved. The question asks whether the United States avoided an air strike or surface-to-surface missile strike directly hitting Iranian land or internal waters by late Nov. 2, Iran time. Minor strikes, intercepted munitions, strikes at sea and unexecuted threats do not count. The material available does not say when the confirmed strike happened or how large it was. Iranian media reported explosions in the early hours of Nov. 3 local time, and a monitoring report placed them shortly after midnight on Nov. 3 in Iran, after the cutoff.

The odds took a sharp path on Tuesday. Through Monday, the ceasefire holding through Nov. 2 was all but certain. Around midnight early Tuesday, bets collapsed within minutes to a toss-up and then to unlikely, and they swung between those two for several hours. They climbed back to likely before dawn, edged higher through the day and settled at certain late Tuesday. No reported news explained the rebound.

The overnight shock reached other questions. Bets on the ceasefire lasting through the U.S. midterm elections fell to a long shot in about a minute. Questions on later dates through November and December have also settled at certain failure, so traders treat the truce as short-lived even as they treat it as having lasted through Nov. 2.

The truce has been fragile all year. A June memorandum collapsed over shipping in early July, and a month-long pause in U.S. strikes ended on Aug. 30. Trump said in late October that the United States would not attack Iran before the Nov. 3 midterms. Reporting from Nov. 2 said U.S. strikes on Qeshm had been carried out in secret over recent weeks.

What comes next is diplomacy and the threat of force. Qatari mediators were in Tehran for talks on a draft deal, and Iranian and U.S. feedback was expected within about 36 hours of Nov. 3. Vance said Washington had set no deadline for a peace deal and that Trump retained military options. Reporting said U.S. forces could launch major operations within 96 hours of an order. A deal or further strikes would affect questions on later ceasefire dates, not the Nov. 2 deadline, which has passed.