Wednesday briefing: How Trump’s Iran gamble has produced a crisis reshaping the global order

The Guardian (World) reports in its Wednesday briefing that the United States has struck Iran for an eleventh consecutive night, hitting aircraft hangars and drone storage sites. Iran has answered with retaliatory strikes on American air bases and on neighbouring Gulf states, which accuse Tehran of deliberately targeting desalination plants that are essential to the region's water supply. Each side now claims it is stopping the other from controlling the strait of Hormuz, the channel that carried twenty percent of the world's oil before the war began, and vessels loaded with oil, gas and fertiliser remain at a standstill. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate the conflict has cost thirty-seven point five billion dollars so far, as he faced lawmakers angry over the soaring price tag and over the deaths of three American service members last week.

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