Trump has saved Starmer

Iran to the rescue

There is a section in Christopher Hitchens’s autobiography, written just before his death, where he talks about his decision to support the invasion of Iraq. He talks about the conversations that he had with Paul Wolfowitz in the leadup to the war, on high minded foreign policy outcomes - how the Israelis might try and take advantage of the war by expelling Palestinians and the role of Turkey in the invasion. He then continues:

“Of course, what I should have been asking Wolfowitz, instead of bending his ear about these enterprises of such moral pith and geostrategic moment, was: “Does the Army Corps of Engineers have a generator big enough to turn the lights of Baghdad back on?” or perhaps “Has a detachment of Marines been ordered to guard the Iraq National Museum?” But, not begin a professional soldier or quartermaster, nor feeling myself able to advise those who were, I rather tended to assume that things of this practical sort were being taken care of. It would have been like asking if we’d remembered to pack enough rations and ammunition.”

Although I am not important enough to have been complicit in the invasion of Iran I am similarly bemused by the fact that it does not appear the US had any plans for what they would do about the Strait of Hormuz when the Iranians would inevitably try to block it. I first heard about the Strait of Hormuz and its capacity to bring the global economy to its knees at the age of ten. I remember being shown big scary charts and being told that we wouldn’t have any money left if it happened. Some big numbers like ninety billion were thrown around.