HORMUZ CORRESPONDENT, OLLIE TANKER

“WHEN EVERYONE IS finished giving Donald Trump the good kicking they’ve always wanted to, they might want to reconsider his desperate pleas for help in keeping the Straits of Hormuz open to shipping, if not for the sake of America then for their own sakes. Because this could get really ugly, really fast.”

Dr Moshe Rommel, specialist in Middle Eastern Strategy, who says he’s long oil in the short term and short oil in the long term, was speaking from Doha. “When it looked like Trump and Netanyahu were racing to a quick victory, there were mutters offstage, but no one was saying they didn’t want the religious regime gone from Tehran. Well, Trump’s hit a speed bump he definitely should have seen. Maybe he did but didn’t care. That’s Trump. He has oil. It’s only the price of oil that will affect him. The rest of the world, it needs actual oil. Whatever the price. If the Straits of Hormuz are cut off for any considerable period, then it won’t be just an issue of price, it will be supply. No oil, then no industry, no food, no nothing in the end. And if the Chinese think that they’re okay right now because the Iranians let their ships through, wait and see what happens if Trump takes Kharg Island where they load those ships with Iranian oil. Trump may have screwed up in failing to keep the Hormuz channel open but this is war and such things happen all the time in war. It’s how you respond that matters. Some of America’s frenemies may regret their current pussy panic and the rush to the moral high ground might seem pointless when they can’t get any food delivered there. The Middle East is far to important to be left to Trump.”