With public impeachment hearings underway, Washington has reached a much higher than normal level of self-absorption. But as the combatants take their places on the political battlefield, the possibility of an honest-to-God military confrontation might be taking shape 7,000 miles away in the Persian Gulf.

In the age of Trumpian hyperdistraction, Iran probably penetrated most Americans’ consciousness eons ago, before attention was diverted by Ukraine and quid pro quos or Syria and the abandonment of the Kurds. Last week, however, Iran took its boldest step yet to rattle the international community over the fate of the Iran nuclear deal: Tehran announced that it had begun operating 60 advanced centrifuges, which are essential to separating out the uranium isotope used in atomic bombs, and that it was planning to install more. In doing so, Iran doubled the number of the more efficient centrifuges it started running in April, though the total number still remains small compared with the many thousands needed to acquire the fissile material necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

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If past is indeed prologue, Iran’s action will set off another cycle of actions and reactions. The United States will continue to tighten the sanction screws, and Iran will use force to underscore its determination to change the status quo. Americans, their eyes focused elsewhere but still having a sense that they’ve been through this before, might not realize that we are sliding closer to a military conflict.

Last week’s announcement was Iran’s latest move to signal its dissatisfaction with an accord that, in the main, it still adheres to, even though the Trump administration pulled out of it in May 2018 to pursue a campaign of “maximum pressure”—aka renewed sanctions. The administration has pinned its hopes on this policy of forcing Tehran to renegotiate what President Donald Trump had called “the worst deal ever.” Several days prior to the announcement about the centrifuges, Tehran also blocked an inspector from the International Atomic Energy Association from entering the Natanz nuclear facility for the first time since the nuclear pact, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was signed in 2015.