Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Iran retaliating against U.S. strikes, the two-day NATO leaders’ summit, and a terrorist attack in Syria.
‘The Era of Hit-and-Run Is Over’
Iran launched several short- and medium-range ballistic missiles at a major U.S. base in Qatar on Monday in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump ordering strikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. Tehran “neither initiated this war nor wanted it,” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday. “But we will never leave any aggression against Iran unanswered.”
Conflict first erupted on June 13, when Israel launched a massive bombardment against Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure—igniting a slew of back-and-forth attacks as well as threats of U.S. involvement. With its strikes over the weekend, the United States officially joined the fray, with Trump warning Tehran afterward that “there will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days.” Foreign leaders were quick to demand a return to diplomacy.
Negotiations remain elusive, though, following Monday’s strikes targeting Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which houses around 10,000 American troops as well as some members of the British Royal Air Force and Qatari military. Built in the mid-1990s, Al Udeid is the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East and serves as forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command.
No casualties were reported from Monday’s strikes, with Qatar saying that it had “successfully” intercepted the missiles. A U.S. defense official told Reuters that no other bases besides Al Udeid had been attacked. And the White House is reportedly monitoring the conflict from the Situation Room.
According to Iranian officials, Tehran gave Qatari authorities advance warning of Operation Basharat al-Fath (or “Annunciation of Victory”) to minimize casualties. Experts say that such coordination suggests that although Iran symbolically needed to retaliate against the United States—the secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said the number of missiles that Iran used to strike Al Udeid was the same number of bombs that Washington deployed against Iran—it wanted to allow all sides an off-ramp to prevent further escalation.
A similar strategy was used in 2020, when Iran gave Iraq notice before firing ballistic missiles at U.S. forces stationed there following Washington’s assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani.
The Iranians had “gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday. “I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured. Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”
Still, a spokesperson for Iran’s armed forces warned on Monday before Trump’s post that “the era of hit-and-run is over.”
The Qatari Foreign Ministry, which has often helped mediate tensions between Tehran and Washington, called the attack “a flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and airspace,” adding that Doha “reserves the right to respond directly, proportionate to the nature and scale of this blatant aggression and in accordance with international law.” Saudi Arabia echoed Qatar’s language, condemning Iran’s strikes “in the strongest terms.” And French President Emmanuel Macron called on all parties to “exercise maximum restraint, de-escalate, and return to the negotiating table.”
Meanwhile, the region remains on high alert. Less than an hour before Iran’s attack, Qatari authorities closed the country’s airspace, and the U.S. and U.K. embassies advised their citizens to shelter in place. Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have since also closed their airspaces; Egypt has canceled all flights to the Gulf states; and Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has ordered its residents to “remain calm and head to the nearest safe place.”
Today’s Most Read
- The U.S. Has Bombed Iran’s Nuclear Sites by John Haltiwanger
- How Trump Could Lose This War by Daniel Byman
- The Many Ways U.S. Involvement in the War on Iran Could Go Badly by Howard W. French
The World This Week
Tuesday, June 24: The 2025 NATO leaders’ summit kicks off in The Hague.
French President Emmanuel Macron concludes a two-day trip to Norway.
China’s National People’s Congress begins a four-day session.
Wednesday, June 25: The three-day annual assembly of the Organization of American States begins in Antigua and Barbuda.
Thursday, June 26: The European Council holds a two-day leaders’ summit in Brussels.
Friday, June 27: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosts Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker in Berlin.
What We’re Following
What to expect at NATO. In less than 24 hours, NATO will kick off its annual two-day leaders’ summit in The Hague, where the alliance’s 32 members and their allies will address the biggest security threats facing the world today.
The top agenda item will be the push to increase NATO’s minimum defense spending requirement, which currently sits at 2 percent of each nation’s GDP. The United States has largely led that charge, with Trump demanding a 5 percent baseline to encourage greater burden-sharing. Despite many NATO members as well as NATO chief Mark Rutte backing the proposal, Spain rejected the target last week, calling it “unreasonable.”
Eight countries are failing to meet the 2 percent baseline, Spain being one of them. If all 32 states were to meet the 2 percent target over the next five years, then the alliance would bring in an extra $156 billion. If all members were to meet the 5 percent target over that same timeline, then an estimated extra $4.26 trillion would be added to NATO’s wallet.
The bloc is also expected to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine—though it is still unclear if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will have a seat at the table—as well as the escalating conflict between the United States and Iran.
Want more NATO summit coverage? Check out Situation Report’s special editions, to be published Monday through Thursday, as well as FP’s roundup of NATO experts.
Suicide bombing in Syria. An armed assailant opened fire on congregants at the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox church in Syria on Sunday before detonating an explosive vest, killing at least 25 people and injuring more than 60 others. Governments in the Middle East, the United States, and the European Union have all denounced the incident as a terrorist attack.
No group has claimed responsibility thus far, but the Syrian Interior Ministry has blamed the Islamic State, which once controlled large swaths of the country. The attack comes as Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is struggling to win the support of the country’s minority groups after toppling dictator Bashar al-Assad in December and establishing a new government.
“These terrible acts of cowardice have no place in the new tapestry of integrated tolerance and inclusion that Syrians are weaving,” U.S. special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack wrote on X. “We continue to support the Syrian government as it fights against those who are seeking to create instability and fear in their country and the broader region.”
Breaking with tradition. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung named Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Gyu-back on Monday to become the country’s first civilian defense minister in 64 years. Ahn is considered one of the foremost experts on defense policy in the ruling party, and his nomination makes good on Lee’s campaign promise to appoint nonmilitary personnel to the position following the country’s short-lived martial law order last December.
Among Ahn’s past responsibilities, he led the Democratic Party’s emergency task force and chaired the special parliamentary committee in charge of investigating then-President Yoon Suk-yeol’s martial law declaration. Yoon’s defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, also played a leading role in planning the order and is currently in jail facing insurrection charges.
Lee named 10 other individuals to his cabinet on Monday, including former U.N. ambassador Cho Hyun to be the foreign minister and North Korea diplomacy advocate Chung Dong-young to be the unification minister.
Odds and Ends
Rome’s Spanish Steps are a popular tourist destination and a centuries-old symbol of Italy’s rich history. What they are not, however, is a shortcut for vehicles. That’s an important reminder for one 80-year-old driver, who wound up steering his compact luxury Mercedes-Benz A Class sedan onto the steps last Tuesday before getting stuck part way down. The man tested negative for alcohol, and he maintains that he is unsure how he ended up driving through the historic site. Lesson learned: Trust GPS.
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