IRGC strikes US early-warning radar in Bahrain, first direct attack on American military installation in months

Iran's Revolutionary Guard says it destroyed an American early-warning radar installation in Bahrain, announcing the strike as retaliation for a US airstrike on a communications tower in Sirik overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. It is Iran's first direct attack on US military infrastructure in months, and it moves the war outside the Hormuz theater for the first time since the summer. US Central Command denied that the radar had been destroyed and said American forces intercepted two Iranian drones headed for Bahrain.

The IRGC framed the strike as a warning to "end its aerial mischief and oil smuggling in the strait of Hormuz," adding that its aerospace force is "on full alert to confront the enemy without constraint" in the event of repeated violations. Mines separately damaged a tanker in the strait, keeping pressure on the shipping lane that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil.

The escalation arrives as the diplomatic track collapses in Washington. Donald Trump said in a series of interviews that he will attack Iran only if necessary and claimed Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, have urged him to hold back from planned large-scale strikes. He also said he has asked vice-president JD Vance to abandon interest in negotiating a new deal with Iran and focus instead on corruption in Democrat-run cities and states. Vance had been regarded by the Iranians as the most trustworthy figure close to Trump; Tehran recently rejected his request for a personal meeting with their negotiators. Vance has been prominent among Republicans arguing the war caused the party's midterm losses. Trump said he was disappointed in the American public, calling higher diesel prices a small price to pay for preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Inside Iran, the institutional dam against nuclear weapons is showing cracks. The Assembly of Experts — the 88 clerics responsible for choosing the supreme leader — became the first governing body to call for a review of Iran's defence doctrine, a step that could open religious permission to pursue a bomb. In a statement released Thursday, the assembly demanded a review of Iran's membership of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, calling it an "unavoidable necessity" and a "public and national demand." Iran's prohibition on nuclear weapons rests on a fatwa issued by the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

European public opinion is hardening against the war as it widens. A YouGov poll for the Council for Arab-British Understanding found 65 percent of the British public oppose the US resuming the war, with only 14 percent in favour, and 54 percent oppose UK bases being used for American attacks on Iran. Opposition among 2024 Labour voters runs at 79 percent. The poll was published the same week two Iranians were convicted in a UK court of spying and planning attacks on journalists — a verdict the Iranian embassy dismissed as politically motivated.

The war's next phase may be decided less by missile counts than by which constraint breaks first: the American public's tolerance for diesel prices, or a forty-year-old fatwa.