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The nation with the strongest interest in reopening the strait, and with the military power to be able to try, is of course China.

If the US were to wash its hands of the disaster it has precipitated, then that leaves a vacuum which they might fill.
And the "nations don't have allies, just interests" crowd might just start thinking about making common cause with them.

The Chinese leadership is evil, but rational. You can deal with them. The US leadership is evil, and insane.

I don't think the Chinese or Iranian leadership are comparable to the US leadership in the evil stakes.

Trump is breaching boundaries and taboos he never should have in a Western country, which shocks us to the core, but his regime isn't totalitarian.

We believed that the community of interests based on the Atlantic Charter was an alliance of principles, and that our common values mattered. Trump has rejected those common values in favour of a narrow, purely American self interest. From the European point of view, if you had a choice of two offers, one from the USA and one from China, our community of values would have always chosen America. Now, given the United States refuses to accept that community, the alliance is effectively over. Worse, many of the decisions that Trump has taken have not only been taken with no reference to the NATO alliance, several of them have in fact been directly hostile to the interests of the Europeans. In fact Trump has made comments, such as his wish to destroy the Lloyds of London insurance market that are directly contrary to our own national interests. His insults to our PM are simply not acceptable in any forum, while his despicable hostility to Ukraine and his pro Moscow, pro Orban stance is a direct challenge to the interests of the EU.

The abject incompetence of the attack on Iran gives us a chance to haul in the USA in the short term but if we fail to put some restraint on Trump, then the USA not only ceases to be any kind of ally, but becomes instead a direct strategic competitor. Under such circumstances, we start to make deals that no longer reference a community of interests which no longer holds, but instead we will start to aim to do deals that weaken the American threat. In fact, whatever happens in Iran now, the Europeans have no choice- we can no longer rely on American weapons or political support. We will need to rearm and face the challenge not just of China, but the USA too and that is the irrevocable change that Trump's treachery has caused. When Putin goes, there will be a scramble to get Russia onside- and while that could still be a while off, we already see a conflict of interests- the US wants to keep Russia strong enough to challenge China, even if Putinism is still in the saddle, Europe could only work with Russia after Putin and his system have gone.

Trump will be remembered with horror, but his poisonous legacy will probably remain.

Incidentally, re the Trump-Mandelson-Epstein connection: two of the children accusing Trump of abuse in the files have boys names. The full files are, of course, not yet released, but the accusations against Trump in the materials that have been released show a man of almost limitless depravity, especially since it appears that several of the victims seem to have met mysterious deaths.

Too long and too pompous. Didn't read it.

Sorry.

I bow to your expertise on pomposity but how do you know the piece was pompous if you didn't read it?

Fairly safe assumption.

I've found Cicero's posts informative over years, what, exactly do you think was "pompous" in the comment we sew discussing?

Statement from 20 countries including UK and UAE on the Straight of Hormuz.

https://x.com/mofauae/status/2035326341596446810

TL:DR F*** off Iran and allow free passage of vessels.

Yes, but what are they going to do about it?

"…to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait."

Now that the incoming drones and missiles have reduced significantly in recent days, expect the GCC nations to move towards a more offensive phase of their operation. They have navies specifically built towards this problem, and if the US can keep the Apaches and Warthogs flying over the Hormuz area it shouldn’t be massively difficult.

More important is the insurance issue for civil vessels, AIUI Scott Bessent is working on this at the moment, with presumably Lloyd’s of London also involved.

I presume the GCC nations would rather the US and Israel just fucked off now and a peace deal was done?

A peace deal with who exactly?

Because it definitely won’t be anyone to do with the Iranian regime that’s been bombing them for the past 22 days.

US and Israel are saving the GCC countries a lot of ammo at the moment.

They only need that ammo because the US and Israel started bombing Iran!

I’m sure the GCC are happy to see Iran being taken down a notch, but the war isn’t exactly unfolding to their advantage. A quick end to the war, Iran damaged, the straits of Hormuz open again, that seems like a good result for them. Ongoing war with no clear war aims, is that what they want?

They’re been waiting and preparing for this month for the past 47 years. A little disruption is worth it to see Iran finally defeated once and for all.

US and Israel are very much the good guys, and Iran is very much the bad guy.

100%.

It is quite depressing how many people here have an inverted sense of who is good and who is bad here.

The Iranian regime have killed thousands of civilians, the Israeli regime have killed thousands of civilians.

As @Foxy said, it's Alien v. Predator...

Iran killed unarmed civilians.

Israel fought armed terrorists in Hamas.

Two completely different things.

But the Israeli regime still killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in their blood lust.

Alien versus Predator.

No, they didn't.

They fought in a war against an armed enemy and people died as happens in all wars.

That's not blood lust.

Only one nation involved has deliberately murdered tens of thousands of unarmed civilians as opposed to fighting a just war. Only Iran has done that.

It is blood lust. Nothing but blood lust, just like with the Iranian regime.

Hamas slaughtered in one day well over a thousand innocent unarmed people.

And Israel killed well over 50,000 innocent people in revenge.

Alien versus Predator, I'm afraid...

Statement from 20 countries including UK and UAE on the Straight of Hormuz.

https://x.com/mofauae/status/2035326341596446810

TL:DR F*** off Iran and allow free passage of vessels.

Yes, but what are they going to do about it?

"…to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait."

Now that the incoming drones and missiles have reduced significantly in recent days, expect the GCC nations to move towards a more offensive phase of their operation. They have navies specifically built towards this problem, and if the US can keep the Apaches and Warthogs flying over the Hormuz area it shouldn’t be massively difficult.

More important is the insurance issue for civil vessels, AIUI Scott Bessent is working on this at the moment, with presumably Lloyd’s of London also involved.

I presume the GCC nations would rather the US and Israel just fucked off now and a peace deal was done?

A peace deal with who exactly?

Because it definitely won’t be anyone to do with the Iranian regime that’s been bombing them for the past 22 days.

US and Israel are saving the GCC countries a lot of ammo at the moment.

They only need that ammo because the US and Israel started bombing Iran!

I’m sure the GCC are happy to see Iran being taken down a notch, but the war isn’t exactly unfolding to their advantage. A quick end to the war, Iran damaged, the straits of Hormuz open again, that seems like a good result for them. Ongoing war with no clear war aims, is that what they want?

They’re been waiting and preparing for this month for the past 47 years. A little disruption is worth it to see Iran finally defeated once and for all.

US and Israel are very much the good guys, and Iran is very much the bad guy.

100%.

It is quite depressing how many people here have an inverted sense of who is good and who is bad here.

The Iranian regime have killed thousands of civilians, the Israeli regime have killed thousands of civilians.

As @Foxy said, it's Alien v. Predator...

Iran killed unarmed civilians.

Israel fought armed terrorists in Hamas.

Two completely different things.

And those pesky civilians in Gaza were just collateral damage

Hurrah for the IDF. Even the rapists in their midst

Including the 20,000+ pesky kids.

I don't know how Barty sleeps at night

Statement from 20 countries including UK and UAE on the Straight of Hormuz.

https://x.com/mofauae/status/2035326341596446810

TL:DR F*** off Iran and allow free passage of vessels, or we’ll intervene.

An agreement on the Straits would be facilitated by the US and Israel stopping the bombing. We could then have victory for Iran (regime still in place), victory for USA and Israel (Iran's military capability diminished) and the ships flowing again. Do this soon and the economic fallout could be mitigated to something less than ruinous.

Israel would never agree to anything like that.

It is indeed within Israel's power to stop this, because to date they have shown that they have the power to lead Trump by the nose. Since their threat to the Iranian regime is existential, the Iranian regime can be expected to push back rather than capitulate so long as the attacks continue. The only other way for it to stop is for Iran to be defeated, which means completely losing their capacity to disrupt supplies of oil and gas. There is absolutely no sign of that happening.

Israel by its actions is already well down the road of catastrophically ruining the economy of the UK (and that of most of the rest of the world.) Any state acting thus should be regarded as a state hostile to the UK's interests.

In those circumstances, I think the most effective response of the UK (and others) would be to leave no stone unturned to try and ruin the economy of Israel, to induce them to stop.

Apart from the last para, which is a bit daft (while they are backed by the US we have no capacity to "ruin their economy") I agree.

You're of course right that alone the UK doesn't have the capacity to ruin Israel economically. Alone we have the capacity to inflict not insignificant economic damage but not that much. But the same logic applies to pretty well every other state too and if the UK and a handful of other states initially treated Israel thus, further states would I think start to join in, to the extent that they'd then be facing economic damage palpably worse than they are inflicting on us, above and beyond the consequences of higher oil and gas prices (which affects the Israel's economy just as much as it does ours.)

Psychologically too, the spectre of a growing number of states treating Israel as an economic pariah rather than an ally come what may would I think have just as much impact on Israeli public opinion as the economic damage itself.

I don't actually think Netanyahu cares that much about his country's economic prospects at all, nor the very limited threat from Iran to Israel itself (which he's happy to massively exaggerate for his own purposes), what he cares about is his reelection prospects. He'll only stop when he perceives Israeli public opinion turning against him.

Statement from 20 countries including UK and UAE on the Straight of Hormuz.

https://x.com/mofauae/status/2035326341596446810

TL:DR F*** off Iran and allow free passage of vessels.

Yes, but what are they going to do about it?

"…to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait."

Now that the incoming drones and missiles have reduced significantly in recent days, expect the GCC nations to move towards a more offensive phase of their operation. They have navies specifically built towards this problem, and if the US can keep the Apaches and Warthogs flying over the Hormuz area it shouldn’t be massively difficult.

More important is the insurance issue for civil vessels, AIUI Scott Bessent is working on this at the moment, with presumably Lloyd’s of London also involved.

I presume the GCC nations would rather the US and Israel just fucked off now and a peace deal was done?

A peace deal with who exactly?

Because it definitely won’t be anyone to do with the Iranian regime that’s been bombing them for the past 22 days.

US and Israel are saving the GCC countries a lot of ammo at the moment.

They only need that ammo because the US and Israel started bombing Iran!

I’m sure the GCC are happy to see Iran being taken down a notch, but the war isn’t exactly unfolding to their advantage. A quick end to the war, Iran damaged, the straits of Hormuz open again, that seems like a good result for them. Ongoing war with no clear war aims, is that what they want?

They’re been waiting and preparing for this month for the past 47 years. A little disruption is worth it to see Iran finally defeated once and for all.

US and Israel are very much the good guys, and Iran is very much the bad guy.

100%.

It is quite depressing how many people here have an inverted sense of who is good and who is bad here.

The Iranian regime have killed thousands of civilians, the Israeli regime have killed thousands of civilians.

As @Foxy said, it's Alien v. Predator...

Iran killed unarmed civilians.

Israel fought armed terrorists in Hamas.

Two completely different things.

And those pesky civilians in Gaza were just collateral damage

Hurrah for the IDF. Even the rapists in their midst

Including the 20,000+ pesky kids.

For some balance: you’ve admitted your youth spent as a communist supporter. In any sensible world, that should have disbarred you from any career in mainstream British politics, just as it would for some right-wing youth who spent their time on National Front marches and later fancied a career in the Tory party. But, because of our blind spot when it comes to the abomination of communism, you were allowed to reinvent yourself, sell your soul to New Labour, and serve your time in parliament as one of its foot soldiers. Doubtless, if we dug into your voting record, we would uncover a whole stack of votes you made for things in which you simply don’t believe.

Now, retired from active politics, you’re free to return to putting your principles ahead of keeping your place on the political gravy train.

In the round, far from being a good example, I would suggest you’re an exemplar for much that is wrong with our politics.

It's a view. But I've never felt that there was a huge gap between my youthful Eurocommunism and later acting as a largely loyal Labour MP. Both came from the same essentially idealistic starting point, and although Eurocommunism - supporting the principle of equality and working-class solidarity while rejecting the dictatorial slant of Eastern Europe - proved a dead end I've never apologised for supporting it (I doubt if you'd even know if I wasn't open about it). I felt that Blair and Brown were in principle on board with the project of a more equal society, in a way that I sadly no longer feel with Starmer. Nor did I see the Commons in the least as a gravy train - I took a 50% pay cut on election compared with my previous private sector job, and the 13 years in Parliament wasn't a particularly wealthy time.

Most of us make excuses for our choices and I'm sure that I'd do some things differently if I relived my life. But you imply a more cynical approach than I ever had.

Ignore the haters, Nick. You have put in the hours supporting this precious thing called parliamentary democracy. I for one appreciate your service. It's easy to make unpleasant remarks on an anonymous blog, far harder to throw yourself into the imperfect world of politics to make messy compromises and try to nudge things in the right direction.