The Ceasefire Collapsed in Hormuz: the US and Iran Traded Strikes, and Croatian Sailors Survived a Hit Tanker by a Miracle

The ceasefire between the US and Iran lasted exactly as long as it suited both sides. After overnight American strikes on Iranian targets, Tehran retaliated in the morning with attacks on US military targets in the region, and Donald Trump declared the deal no longer existed. All of it - while he sat in a meeting with the NATO Secretary General in Ankara. The synchronization of the military escalation with the diplomatic summit is hardly a coincidence.

The trigger was an attack on several tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrowest chokepoint of the world's oil trade. Among those hit was a Qatari liquefied gas tanker with six Croatian sailors on board. One of the survivors was blunt: "I survived by a miracle, we're all alive." Balkan people, as always, found themselves in the middle of someone else's war at jobs they took to feed their families.

Trump's rhetoric was brutal and stripped of any diplomatic veil: "They are evil and sick people. They are a cancer. And you know what you do with cancer? You remove it as soon as possible." He claimed the American strikes were "20 times stronger" than the Iranian response. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, for its part, announced it had struck 85 US military targets in Bahrain and Kuwait in response to "the violation of the ceasefire." Air-raid sirens sounded in both countries several times.

The effect was felt immediately where it hurts most - in the market. At least four oil and gas tankers gave up on passing through the strait and turned back, and Washington revoked the key waiver that allowed Iran to sell oil on the international market. The result: the price of oil jumped by over three percent. And when oil rises in Hormuz, it rises at the pumps in Skopje too - geopolitics doesn't need a visa to reach our pockets.

Still, analysts advise caution before drawing dramatic conclusions. Although this is the most serious exchange of fire since the deal was signed, the escalation itself doesn't automatically mean the ceasefire must collapse - because neither Washington nor Tehran has an interest in returning to open conflict. The question is how long interest will stay stronger than pride. In the Balkans, we know that calculation all too well.