Trump backed a war meant to break Iran and restore control, but the last 24 hours have left both him and Netanyahu looking anything but in charge. Right, so Donald Trump has triggered the last thing he wanted, and it is not some mystery buried in briefing paper language either, it is sitting right there in the Strait of Hormuz where ships are now moving on the basis of Iranian permission, American promises have started sounding like cheap sales patter, and one Turkish-owned vessel has already gone through after Ankara said Tehran cleared it. I think calling this control might be underselling it a bit actually. That is not what control looks like not really. That is not what victory looks like. That is what a backfire looks like when the people who started the fire are still pretending they are in charge of the smoke with Billy Joel playing in the background. Trump backed a war that was supposed to break Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu widened it because widening things is what Benjamin Netanyahu does when restraint might force him to examine his own hand this, all 6 fingers of it, and now one of the busiest energy routes on earth is being discussed in terms of what Iran does and doesn’t let through. No input from the US or Israel required. Donald Trump has then made it even worse, because the brain cell deficient buffoon has opened that yawning chasm in the front of his orange face and said out loud what the cover story was trying to hide. United Nations experts have condemned the American and Israeli attack on Iran as illegal aggression, they have said Iran has the right to self-defence, and they have warned that Trump’s talk of “unconditional surrender” and talk of choosing Iran’s future leadership crosses straight out of the language of security and into regime change.