As the Guardian has reported:

Donald Trump's call for allies to send ships to the Strait of Hormuz to protect commercial shipping vessels and unblock global oil supplies has met a muted response.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called on the UK, China, France, Japan, South Korea and other countries to send ships to the waterway, the world's busiest shipping route, which is being violently blockaded by Iran.

It has been noted that Keir Starmer will decline that invitation to help today, joining the ranks of other nations that are not queueing up to assist.

There are a number of inferences.

Firstly, the appeal for help sent out the signal that the USA and Israel have no idea how to deal with this economic war that they have started, and suggests that they fear that they are losing it.

Secondly, Trump has revealed his own inconsistency. It was only a week or so ago that he was saying he did not need UK naval support because he had already won the war. Now he is admitting that he has not done that and that he needs assistance after all. This is not the way to win friends

Thirdly, a new alliance of indifference to the USA and Israel is emerging. As the illegality of this wall, together with its total strategic illogicality, becomes increasingly apparent, other states, including those mentioned by the Guardian, will find themselves increasingly aligned against the USA, taking the line: "You started this; now you work out how to end it."

Fourthly, since none of those states considers Iran to be a threat to their well-being, and rationally cannot see why, at this time, it was a threat to either the USA or Israel, they have no great desire to take sides. They might all appreciate that Iran winning might result in a major strategic realignment in the Gulf, as would be inevitable, but they might think that a price worth paying to break the power of Israel, which is a greater threat to the stability of the region. Objectively, that is clearly the case. With its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran, Israel's "greater Zionist" narrative might be increasingly perceived to be the real threat that needs to be contained in the Middle East.

What does all this mean?

Potentially, it means this war is much more significant than we might have expected at first. Over recent years, we have become used to occasional missile attacks on Iran. Last year's attack, which was claimed to have wiped out Iran's nuclear capability, thereby removing any justification for the latest attack, was typical of these. The event was over and done, with little wider consequence arising quite quickly. This attack has been altogether different, developing into full scale war as a result of the choices made by the USA and Israel, all of which look to have been strategically naive.

It is too early to be certain of the outcomes of this war, although, as I previously said, its economic consequences will be severe and have so far been seriously underpriced in financial markets, whilst the human cost will persist for decades. What I increasingly feel, however, is that the political consequences might last just as long. Since Israel's Six-Day War in 1967, it has become accustomed to military success over its neighbours. Israel's extraordinary regional power has been based on that. The idea that Israel might suffer a military reversal has been hard to imagine. It might be too early to say that it will on this occasion, but the possibility now exists. In itself, that is a radical idea, changing the regional balance of power as a result. In Israeli terms, that is the last outcome that it could have wished for, but might be what it gets.

My conclusion is that we are facing potentially major strategic realignments as a result of this war. Even if the USA and Israel win, the distance between them and other major nations in international affairs will have increased. That in itself will be a major outcome. It also has serious consequences for NATO, whose relevance when the USA is acting in ways seriously out of alignment with its supposed allies is increasingly in question. At the same time, a major rethinking of the Gulf's politics might be required, and only China is ahead in that game.

This is no minor war. Its ramifications will reverberate for a very long time

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