The Fog Of War

Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/SYtG3NgvQzs

With no fewer than eleven countries dragged into the Middle East conflict within the first week, where it’s all leading gets harder and harder to fathom. The more so as the White House line keeps whizzing around like a Catherine wheel. And the likely fallout for the British economy’s leaving the Prime Minister in a near-impossible position.

What feels a million years ago but was only a few days back, the Chancellor announced in her spring mini-budget that we weren’t doing too badly, all things considered.

But as that was based on official projections culled before the fighting started the whole thing was largely and justifiably written off as not worth the paper it was printed on.

With a huge and lasting spike in energy prices and its implications for interest rates heading our way, it’s obvious why. And with the cost of living high on everybody’ priority list it’s yet another dent in Labour’s already meagre prospects.

Feed into that the danger that if Donald Trump really does go for Starmer, by suddenly whacking up taxes on anything we try to sell the Yanks, then we as a nation are seriously out of pocket.

Certainly Sir Keir’s policy of delicately tickling the man’s tummy ever since he got in seemed to have gone right down the tubes when the Prez got nasty about the help we didn’t give him when he started bombing Iran.

Of course saying ‘this is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with’ was a bit rich. When you consider that for the first two years of World War Two it was the Brits begging the Americans to lend a hand, not the other way round.

Still, best not expect too much consistency from the fizzing orange brain – given that he justified his campaign on the grounds that Iran posed a nuclear threat, even though last summer he claimed he’d obliterated precisely that.

Also, when in opposition, The Donald argued that bombing Iran was strictly for losers with low approval ratings.

In point of fact his own aren’t looking too healthy these days, with more Americans opposing his campaign than backing it, according to a poll conducted for the Washington Post.

Here at least Trump’s got something in common with Starmer, as a YouGov survey showed that nearly half of us think it was a bad idea, while nearly a quarter just don’t know what to make of it.

No getting round it, the now decapitated regime in Iran did consist of a bunch of hate-driven, murderous, misogynistic monsters who’d spent years fostering terror abroad and oppression at home.

But while they’re far from alone there, western powers charging in with all guns blazing tend not to make matters better. Look no further than Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq.

After the justification for that last one fell just as comprehensively apart as the country itself did afterwards, the then Prime Minister Blair was hoist onto the naughty step and has never quite managed to get off it.

At the time Tony’s bosom buddy George Bush did get a warning from his top dude General Colin Powell: ‘If you break it, you own it.’

It’s obvious Trump was told something similar by his Vice-Prez Vance, though clearly any such warning went similarly unheeded.

As to where it all ends, god alone knows. Best case scenario is there’s a popular uprising within the country, maybe helped by an armed group of Kurdish Iranians, leading to a spangly new democratic state.

But, worst case scenario, the whole thing descends into utter chaos and stays that way. With a population of ninety million, remote control hardly looks like an option.

If that thought occurs to Trump he could perfectly easily just get bored with the whole thing and walk away. Maybe even claim that he’s won, and notch it up as yet another war he’s managed to end. Anything’s possible.

Meantime, Starmer’s grappling with getting as many Brits out of the area as quickly as he can, and facing the inevitable accusations that it’s not quickly enough.

He’s also facing the unwelcome prospect of getting more heavily involved in the fighting itself. His dilemma is no different from that of other, similarly ambivalent, European leaders.

But longer term there’s the question of whether the fabled special relationship with our Stateside cousins is a bit of a busted flush, or simply on hold while we wait for Trump to see out his second term in office.

In theory he’s only allowed two, but he has made noises in the past about bending that rule. Then again, it’s not like he’s getting any younger.

Whichever way that cookie crumbles there’s an earnest debate in Downing Street about whether we really should be easing away from the Transatlantic Alliance and getting much more cuddly with our neighbours.

Starmer’s already tentatively dipping his toe in that turbulent water with his reset of relations with the European Union. Maybe yet he’ll go a whole lot further.

Feeding into that political equation is what the hell to do about the man who effectively gave us Brexit in the first place. With Nigel Farage consistently leading the polls it would be one way of hurling the gauntlet right back at him.

Risky, for sure, but if the town hall elections in May go as badly for Labour as everyone’s predicting they’ll be running dangerously short of cards to play anyway.

And while the debate rages within the party about whether to try and head off Reform by swerving right, or left, the Home Secretary’s nailed her colours to the mast with her new hardline policies on immigration.

Shabana Mahmood made it clear last week just how much more difficult she plans to make it for people from abroad to settle in this country on anything like a long-term basis.

Though this has got many on the party’s progressive wing spitting nails she insists there’s no other way to beat those beasts in Farage’s flock.

Interesting to note that a survey of Reform members showed that more than half of them believe non-white British citizens born abroad should be deported or encouraged to leave.

Given that Mahmood’s parents are of Pakistani origin, and though she was born Birmingham the family moved to Saudi Arabia when she was still a toddler, she herself only narrowly dodged their crosshairs.

Still, talk of tinies calls to mind something a whole lot closer to a happy ending.

When mummy rejected her baby macaque named Punch he was given a great big toy orangutang from Ikea for comfort. And visitors so adored the sight of him dragging it around that the zoo had to limit viewing time.

He clearly loved his pretend friend all the more because the other monkeys were horrid to him, pushing him away and chasing him round the enclosure.

But lately they’ve become more accepting. Grooming or hugging him, one even giving him a piggyback. Which suggests he’s got the hang of how the others handle things, and is getting the thumbs up in return.

A lesson maybe for us humans? Integration can be done after all.