The Middle East war could yet just fizzle out. But while it continues to rage parallels are being drawn with seismic events of yesteryear. The hit could be as bad as the world economic crisis caused by similar conflicts half a century ago. And the bleak outlook in eastern Europe is seen as up there with the fall of the Berlin Wall, only the other way round. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, our Prime Minister has on his hands the mother of all damage limitation exercises.
Best case scenario is The Donald does a TACO, the disparaging acronym short for Trump Always Chickens Out. The fact that he’s practically begging the Iranian leadership to do a deal suggests he might.
Could even be he’s clocked the real reason King Canute lined up his chaps on the beach. Not to prove he can do whatever takes his fancy, but to show he can’t hold back the tide after all.
In short, maybe he’s finally getting his head round the fact that bombing the hell out of Iran isn’t bringing these guys to heel. Instead it’s crumbling away chunks of his own support base back home.
Probably sensing that he’s realised huffing and puffing isn’t blowing their house down, the stubborn and nasty regime in Tehran is playing hardball.
Which is the perfect excuse for the every bit as hardline Israeli government to carry on brutally settling old scores with its neighbours.
And while all this is happening thousands of miles away, it’s in danger of digging deeper holes in British pockets than nearly anyone else’s. For the simple reason that we’re so heavily reliant on imported oil and gas.
The United States, by contrast, is doing rather well out of Trump’s war, as they export lots of the stuff.
Could be he figured out that bit for himself, though he’s probably not quite as chuffed to discover that his voters are giving his exciting adventure the thumbs down anyway.
Polling stateside shows that way over half of them are against it, while only a quarter backed the opening salvoes.
And, maybe another straw in the wind, the Donald got a little local setback last week when his side lost the Yankee equivalent of a by-election in his own backyard.
In the very chunk of Florida that’s home to his curiously understated gaff, the other side booted out the Republican he’d endorsed.
Yay, chortled a high-profile Democrat: ‘If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what’s possible this November.’ Oh yes, those mid-term elections could yet drive a coach and four through Trump’s monarchical style of government.
Little wonder then the man’s getting grumpier and grumpier about NATO folk who aren’t buying into his gung-ho talk. They’ve done ‘absolutely nothing’ to help, he’s squealing on his social media platform. In caps, natch.
But though he reckons the Brits are the most yellow-bellied of all, Keir Starmer’s sticking by his epiglottal equivalent of a Love Actually moment.
During a grilling last week by senior MPs he stated as emphatically as he knows how: ‘I am not wavering on this … This is not our war and we are not getting dragged into this war.’
And with, from Trump’s point of view, maddening symmetry, the European Union’s top diplomat also said a few days back: ‘It’s not our war.’
Which only goes to prove, according to the Prez, they’re all cowards. Oh and btw, without the US: ‘NATO is a paper tiger.’
Certainly, as long as he’s in the White House at least, what was created at the end of World War Two as the bedrock of western security is looking pretty wobbly.
Worse, we Brits are rather dependent on American backup to make sure our heavy-duty weapons systems do as they’re told.
No great surprise then, given the hell the Russians are giving Ukraine, maybe just for starters, that Starmer’s been drawing reverse analogies with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
That seismic event signalled the collapse of the Soviet Union, and heralded a glorious era of peace for our time, to coin the phrase.
But just as Britain’s then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain turned out to have called it wrong, the same can be said of what we could be looking at now.
Certainly, two fairly up-to-date polls show that getting on for half of us here in UK believe we’ll be at war within the next five to ten years. And one of them showed that a clear majority see America as a threat these days, as well as the usual suspects.
So much for the post Berlin Wall peace dividend. One horrible dilemma Starmer’s wrestling with is how to get Britain’s armed forces up to strength again, after they’d been hollowed out when it looked like they weren’t really needed after all.
We’re talking big bucks here, that’ve got to come from the much nicer things we’ve been spending them on since those heady days. A tough sell there, that’ll probably cost whoever’s in Downing Street an awful lot.
Then, more immediately, there’s how to manage the financial fallout from the Middle East conflict. Number Ten and the Treasury are making noises about a helping hand for those hardest hit by possible heating cost hikes.
But it’s all pretty vague, partly because decisions on divvying the money out will be incredibly complicated, and partly because it’s impossible to tell at this stage how big the problem’s going to be.
No getting round it though. As long as the threat hangs over us, with the government hardly in a position to wave a magic wand and just make it all go away, it’s likely to translate in voters’ minds into all Starmer’s fault.
And their chance to stick one right up him is now just weeks away. Early in May millions of voters will have their say in town hall elections, as well as in the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales.
All very well senior Labour figures trying to brush off the expected crushing defeats as situation normal for any incumbent government. They know perfectly well we could be looking at the springboard for a challenge to Starmer’s leadership.
Gathering storms then, both abroad and at home. And overhead, by the way.
Politicos and non politicos alike can’t have failed to notice over the last few months an awful lot of hideous rainfall and blasting winds driving everyone bonkers.
But here at least there’s a bit of fun for us all to share in. As well as so regularly dishing out the bad news, the Met Office have invited folk to come up with names for future outbursts of stinky weather.
In the event, they announced in arguably a rather po-faced way: ‘We couldn’t ever use comedy names for our storms, because at the heart of it, naming storms has an important safety purpose.’
They did have to admit though they enjoyed a lot of what people came up with.
As well they might, as some were comedy corkers. Like Elon Gust and Dame Judi Drench. Then there were Stormy McStormFace, Keir Stormer, David Blowy, Storm Prince Andrew, Bruce Spring Storm and Fifty Shades of Rain.
Take your pick – they’ll all brilliant.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.