SOUTH KOREA PERSPECTIVE

Seoul, July 11, 2026. South Korea views the escalation between Washington and Tehran primarily through the lens of its own security equation. Since the NATO summit in Ankara, Yonhap reports that Donald Trump labeled Iranian leaders as "thugs," "sick," and "liars," declaring the interim agreement (MOU) signed on June 17 "terminated." On July 10, on Truth Social, he confirmed notifying Tehran of the end of the ceasefire while accepting to continue talks: "We agreed to do it, but the United States told them, unequivocally, that the ceasefire is OVER!"

The Korea Herald and the Korea Times detail the extent of the strikes: over 80 Iranian targets hit on Tuesday, followed by 90 military sites in the night from Wednesday to Thursday, in retaliation for Iranian attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran claims that 14 to 17 people were killed and 78 injured, denouncing strikes that also targeted civilian infrastructure - bridges and railways to Mashhad, where Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, killed on February 28, was buried on Thursday. An Iranian security official, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, warned that any attack on the country's infrastructure would be "reciprocated," including against Israel.

This escalation of tensions resonates particularly in Seoul. During a forum organized this week by the Korea-U.S. Alliance Foundation, Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, warned that South Korea would be mistaken to seek to develop nuclear arms to counter North Korea, as such a choice would "develop more tensions between states." He advocated for maintaining a "long-term security umbrella" guaranteed by Washington rather than nuclear autonomy, which he deemed "very dangerous." South Korean commentators see a direct echo of the Iranian crisis: in a context where the Trump administration is multiplying military postures worldwide, the question of the reliability of extended American deterrence and the timeline for transferring operational control in wartime remains at the heart of South Korea's strategic debate.