Right, so the tangerine toddler Donald Trump has managed the rather impressive feat of taking a helicopter incident near the Strait of Hormuz, using it as his excuse to hit Iran again, so much for claiming he wanted out of this mess, and then watching US-linked bases across Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan come under fire. Trump wanted a strong response, Trump ordered strikes on Iran, and Iran answered by pushing America's regional military network straight into the firing line.

Bahrain and Kuwait reported air defences active, Jordan got pulled into the same story, and the immediate official line from those states was that attacks had been intercepted or repelled, with no immediate confirmed casualties or damage. So let's get the first thing straight before anything else, because the headline is not that Trump looked tough as he would love it be. ...