As Yogi Berra said: it’s like déjà vu all over again.

Last year, the US and Iran were in the midst of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program when Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, killing various scientists and military leaders and striking missile production facilities. After 12 days of fighting, Trump sent B-2 bombers to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear sites and supposedly left them “totally obliterated”.

Fast forward to this year. The US and Iran were once again in the midst of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme when Israel and the US launched yet another surprise attack, killing Ayatollah Khamenei and other military leaders. This was done, Trump explained, to ensure that “Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon” (even though its nuclear programme had supposedly been destroyed six months earlier.)

After just two days of fighting, the entire region is on fire. Israel and the US have been striking Iran relentlessly. Iran has retaliated by firing drones and ballistic missiles at Israel and US bases across the Persian Gulf.

What are the implications for Britain and the rest of Europe if the war continues? Overwhelmingly negative.

It’s often said that Iran supports ‘terrorism’. However, Iran-backed groups have not been able to carry out any major terror attacks in Europe (except for isolated incidents involving Israelis and Iranian dissidents). On the other hand, Trump recently boasted that he “essentially put” the new Syrian President into office. Al Sharaa, as he is now called, is a former leader of Al-Qaeda who once had a $10 million bounty on his head. Al-Qaeda, of course, killed hundreds of Europeans in half a dozen major attacks across the continent.

If former Al-Qaeda leaders can be rewarded with presidencies, it makes no sense to start a war for the vague benefit of stopping ‘terrorism’. In fact, the war seems far more likely to increase the risk of terrorism against Europeans. Senior Shia clerics have, unsurprisingly, declared a fatwa against the US and Israel as revenge for the assassination of Khamenei. And random Shia Muslims who act on this injunction may interpret it as applying to Europeans too.

However, terrorism is the least of our immediate worries.

It has been obvious for months that, if the US attacked Iran, Iran might retaliate by striking energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf and closing the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. Such retaliation appears to have begun. Qatar has already halted production of natural gas, sending natural gas futures skyrocketing. If strikes on oil and gas infrastructure continue, we could be looking at a second European energy crisis. Putin, meanwhile, will be laughing all the way to the bank.

The biggest worry of all concerns migration. A war lasting weeks, or even months, has the potential to create another huge refugee crisis. Iran alone has a population of 93 million people and if only 5% flee to Europe, that’s 4.6 million refugees. (About 5% of Syria’s population fled to Europe in 2015, so the figure is not unrealistic.)

European interests would be served by ending this war as soon as possible. Yet at the present time, both sides are digging in their heels.

Read More: Trump’s War Harms Europe