Israel’s war has not just hit Iran; it has put a surcharge on the boards, chips and gadgets its own tech economy needs as well as everyone else. Right, so Iran hit Saudi Arabia’s Jubail petrochemical complex on 7 April, after Iran’s own petrochemical plants at Asaluyeh, tied to the South Pars gas field, had already been hit in strikes from Israel. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards described Jubail as retaliation, so this was not Iran randomly waking up one morning and deciding to make laptops and the like more expensive for a laugh, though I’ll get onto that point in a moment. Jubail is part of the Gulf’s industrial plumbing, where Saudi petrochemicals, Western-linked supply chains, energy infrastructure and global manufacturing all meet, and that is why the consequences, the knock on effects of that strike has taken a few weeks to become clear. Produc ...