War Resumes: Iran Strikes US Bases in Kuwait and Bahrain After Trump Threatens to Destroy Tehran

The ceasefire that was celebrated eleven days ago has become yet another cautionary tale about the folly of optimism in the Middle East . The US-Iran war lurched back into full, ugly motion, as missiles and drones flew in both directions and US President Donald Trump resorted to his preferred medium of diplomacy, Truth Social, to announce that Iran may simply cease to exist.

Trump, in a post that blended threat with impatience, wrote that US Central Command aircraft had struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites for violating the ceasefire "AGAIN," adding: "There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. " The fact that a sitting president is rationing out the concept of being "reasonable" in 140-character bursts is, of course, entirely normal now.

The trigger for Sunday's chaos was a sequence of tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz that would be farcical if the stakes were not so grave. After US strikes on June 26 in response to an Iranian attack on the MV Ever Lovely, Iran was given a chance to honour the ceasefire but instead launched a drone that struck the MT Kiku at 4:30 am, prompting a second wave of American strikes on June 27 targeting Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defence sites and minelayer capabilities. Each side, with admirable consistency, insists the other struck first.

CENTCOM reportedly struck 10 Iranian targets under Trump's direction. In response, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps did not contemplate a diplomatic note. Between 2 am and 3 am local time on June 28, the IRGC launched a joint ballistic missile and drone operation targeting the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and the US Fifth Fleet headquarters at Port Salman in Bahrain, claiming to have destroyed eight American military facilities. Those claims remain unverified, but Bahrain confirmed that Iranian drones struck a residential building in Muharraq , calling it a flagrant violation of sovereignty.

Hours before the Bahrain attack, Vice President JD Vance had written on X that "Iran signed a ceasefire agreement," pointedly reminding Tehran of its obligations. Tehran, in its characteristically unbothered fashion, chose not to let that stop it. The IRGC warned that "any enemy aggression, whatever the pretext, even against insignificant targets, will have a crushing response ," and threatened that further ceasefire violations would bring "all ongoing diplomatic processes to a complete halt."

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi , speaking alongside his Iraqi counterpart, asserted that the Strait of Hormuz arrangements "are being adopted and implemented" and that "responsibility for them rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran alone." This is Tehran's way of saying it controls one of the world's most consequential waterways and would like you to remember that.

The Lebanon front, predictably, is no calmer. Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem declared the US-brokered Israel-Lebanon security agreement "null and void," calling it a humiliation and a surrender of sovereignty, while Israel struck targets in southern Lebanon a day after the framework deal was signed in Washington. Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun called Trump urging him to press Israel to honour its withdrawal commitments, with Trump indicating he would meet Aoun in Washington soon.

Switzerland, where Pakistan and Qatar are mediating technical talks, remains a theoretical destination.