The conflict between the US and Iran has entered a dangerous new phase. For a second day running, American forces bombed targets in Iran, and Tehran struck back with an attack on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. A war long waged through proxies and threats is now being fought directly, with missiles and drones.

According to US Central Command, the aircraft hit „military infrastructure, communications systems, air defences, drone storage and naval mine-laying capabilities". Washington framed the attack as a response to an Iranian strike on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz - the very strait through which a significant part of the world's oil passes, and whose closure would immediately be felt at our own petrol pumps too.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard and navy retaliated with a joint drone attack on the US bases in the Gulf. Iranian media reported several explosions in the southern regions of Sirik and Qeshm. According to an unnamed US official, there were no American deaths and no major damage to the bases - but in war, the first reports are almost always the most favourable to whoever gives them.

The most worrying part is the rhetoric. On his own network, Donald Trump wrote that the Iranians may not even be able to want to be „reasonable", and that they will then be forced to finish the job they started militarily. When the president of a superpower publicly renounces reason as an option, that's not just a threat - it's an announcement. And escalation in the Gulf never stays in the Gulf; prices, fear and instability travel fast, all the way to the Balkans.