The US quietly struck Iran's Qeshm Island, and Trump says this "is not a war"

The US military carried out limited strikes on Iran's Qeshm Island, three US officials confirmed. The official explanation is a classic: "defensive action" to protect US forces and property in the region. According to one of them, the strike came after Iran opened fire on a US aircraft, and another says the Iranians used surface-to-air missiles.

The detail that says more than the strike itself: the administration deliberately kept the action quiet, so it wouldn't look bigger than it really was. According to US media, similar strikes had been carried out before - also in silence. So the war that officially doesn't exist has its own invisible chapter.

Iran's Fars agency, close to the authorities, reported "several explosions" on Qeshm in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The explosions were also heard by residents of the neighbouring island of Hengam and the port city of Bandar Abbas. Qeshm is about 22 kilometres from Bandar Abbas and is important to Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz - the route through which around 20 million barrels of oil passed every day before the war. The US military has struck the island before during the war.

The timing is hard to ignore. Americans vote in the midterm elections today, and just before the strike Trump said diplomatic contacts with Tehran were continuing and that a deal "could be reached". In an interview with Fox News, meanwhile, he said the US "may have to hit" Pickaxe Mountain - a suspected underground nuclear site where, according to Israeli estimates, Iran keeps part of its enriched uranium and advanced centrifuges. "That's no big deal. We can do it literally in an hour," he said.

So is it a war or not? Trump is categorical: "We are not at war... This is not a war, this is a very mild conflict." Vice President JD Vance talks of "some progress" in the talks. Tehran, for its part, warns through Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei that it will respond to any new major attack "without geographical limits" - according to a senior security official, even against infrastructure linked to artificial intelligence, not just oil facilities.

The markets didn't wait for interpretation. Oil prices jumped early in the morning on Asian exchanges right after the news about Qeshm, having previously fallen sharply on hopes for diplomacy. And in the US, petrol and diesel may hit the highest prices ever recorded on an election day in American history.

The Balkans know this rhetoric by heart: when those in power call a war a "limited action" or a "mild conflict", it's a message for voters, not a description of what's happening on the ground. The question is who will believe that story more - American voters at the ballot box, or the residents of Bandar Abbas who heard the explosions?