The bill for the war on Iran is heading to Europe

Late on Monday night, residents of Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz reported a series of explosions. US officials later confirmed what they called limited “defensive” strikes, saying they were responding to an Iranian attack on an American aircraft. Hours earlier, Iran said it had shot down two US reconnaissance drones over the same waters, a claim Washington denies. On the same day, Vice President JD Vance told reporters that he and President Donald Trump “feel pretty good about the prospect of reaching a settlement” with Tehran.

That sequence captures the war as Americans vote in today’s midterm elections. Talks are moving, strikes are continuing, and the distance between the two can close in a single night.

It also captures the contradiction at the heart of Washington’s approach. Last week Vance sent a letter to Major General Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and Rezaei acknowledged that its tone was markedly different from earlier American correspondence. Yet the president’s own words over the same days point the other way. On 31 October Trump said: “We still have one or two sites in Iran to take care of, and we can do that in ten minutes. We’ll probably have to take care of Pickaxe Mountain.” The next day he said the only reason he had not “finished Iran” was that he wanted to save lives, adding: “At some point, we’re going to have to bring the hammer down on them.” Later that day he claimed the US had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability and “can do it again in five minutes.” On Monday the White House said Iran “can choose the easy way or the hard way,” and that Trump “holds all the cards.” A respectful letter means something only if conduct follows. As Rezaei has put it, a change in tone is not enough without a change in behaviour.

Tehran’s answer has been to make the price of the hard way explicit, and to make clear that Iranians will not be the only ones paying it.

When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on 1 February that “if they start a war this time, it will be a regional war,” much of the Western commentary filed the line under rhetoric. Four weeks later, the United States and Israel struck Iran and killed him. His warning turned out to be a forecast.

His successor has gone further. Meeting military commanders last week, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei ordered an immediate response to “any kind and level of threat,” without geographic limits, and told commanders to widen the list of potential targets. On Tuesday, Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces and commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, turned that instruction into doctrine. In a message marking the anniversary of 4 November, he said the enemy’s tangible and intangible assets are within range of Iran’s armed forces and that any threat will be answered without geographic limits. He went further still, arguing that Iran has emerged as a fourth pole of power through its control of the Strait of Hormuz and its role in setting the rules of access to that chokepoint.

The word “intangible” matters. Rezaei has already named the categories it covers: undersea cables, data centres and the digital infrastructure on which Persian Gulf economies, and the global companies invested in them, now depend. He has also warned that any new attack would be met with “new weapons.” Read together, these statements describe a war whose costs would travel along fibre-optic lines, shipping lanes and financial networks, far from where the first bombs fall.

In March, missiles were reported heading toward Diego Garcia, roughly 4,000km from Iranian territory. Tehran denied involvement. Western officials and analysts drew their own conclusion: Iran’s reach extends well beyond the 2,000km ceiling its officials had long described. Israel said publicly that such weapons could reach Europe. Whatever one makes of the episode, it has changed how European militaries measure distance. Athens, Rome and Berlin all sit inside that radius.

Distance used to be Europe’s buffer, and it has thinned for political as well as technical reasons. Britain widened US access to its bases after March, and American aircraft engaged in the war have relied on European airspace and facilities. A doctrine that ties retaliation to the source of an attack rather than its location turns those arrangements into a liability.

Governments that allow their territory to be used for strikes on Iran can no longer assume the consequences will stay in the Persian Gulf.

Europeans are already paying, without a single missile landing on their soil. Ursula von der Leyen says the bloc’s fossil fuel import bill has risen by €106bn. Gas prices are up about 140 per cent since late February, and diesel has doubled. Protests over the cost of living have spread from Paris to Lisbon and Athens. Markets show how exposed the continent remains: Brent fell by more than six per cent on Monday on hopes of a deal, only for the Qeshm strikes to restore the war premium within hours.

The pressure is not confined to Hormuz. Fighting between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Ansarallah has intensified, with Yemeni forces striking Saudi oil facilities and Riyadh’s international airport and advancing toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern gate to the Suez Canal and the route for much of Europe’s trade with Asia. A wider war would squeeze both of the region’s maritime chokepoints at once.

Europe’s capitals appear to have registered this. At a meeting in Istanbul on 23 October, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt in urging diplomacy over new attacks. France’s Jean-Noël Barrot warned that further escalation “would create nothing but losers.” Spain has closed its airspace to US aircraft involved in the war.

The region has entered its most intense phase of diplomacy since the war began. Senior Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani officials came to Tehran on 26 October, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that talks with Riyadh are continuing, with the aim of regional security arrangements free of foreign military involvement. He describes the indirect contacts with Washington, carried by Qatar and Pakistan, as “very intensive.” Iran has said it could reopen Hormuz within two days if Washington accepts its conditions, which include lifting recent sanctions, restoring the oil waivers granted in June and ending hostilities on every front, including Lebanon. Vance wants a nuclear commitment first. The dispute is over sequence, and sequence can be negotiated, provided Washington stops treating threats as a substitute for an answer.

Europe’s interest lies in pressing for that answer before the window closes. The weeks between today’s vote and the new Congress on 3 January carry particular risk. An administration absorbing domestic losses may see a short operation as a way to change the subject, and Qeshm shows how easily a “limited” strike can be presented as routine. European governments can make clear that their territory and airspace will not serve such an operation, and they can push Washington toward terms Tehran can accept.

For eight months, Washington and Tel Aviv have assumed that Iranians alone would carry the cost of this conflict. Tehran’s commanders have now said plainly that the next round would not work that way. Europe can wait to find out whether they mean it, or it can act on the assumption that they do.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.