While Iranians are dying under US and Israeli missiles and bombs, or choking on the smoke created by the fires ignited in oil depots, the main focus here in Britain has been the price of a barrel of oil. Yes, to coin a phrase, economics "Trumps" politics - and war!
So, no concern shown for the victims of the Trump/Netanyahu attack, but plenty of concern for the fossil fuel market... Initially, the price went up to $100 a barrel, before coming down again, but it's still quite high, at around $80... and definitely inflationary.
That said, the talking heads also got excited over the criticism Starmer received from Trump for not offering his "unconditional" and whole-hearted support for this war from day one.
But of course, despite all this rhetoric, US planes were using British bases and facilities (e.g., refuelling) all along, and will continue to do so. Just as the Akrotiri base in Cyprus is "a little bit of Britain" as soon as you go through the gate, so are the 12 US bases in Britain a little bit of America... So Starmer was already an "accessory before the fact" in this brutal attack by Trump and Netanyahu against Iran.
As an afterthought, and no doubt to pretend it has a shred of humanity, "BBC Persian" broadcast some personal accounts of the horror which ordinary Iranians are experiencing. Gone for now, are their reports of people in Iran's streets cheering as the bombs hit.
Perhaps those who are opposed to the repressive Islamic regime have remembered the lessons of history: that your enemy's enemy is highly unlikely to be your friend... One can only hope so.
It also seems that the militia organised by the Kurdistan Freedom Party in North Iraq, which was reportedly ready to provide ground troops against the Islamic Republic, also thought twice about lending Trump its support.
A caricature of imperialism
But guess who dared to add his tuppence to the hoo-hah over Starmer's reluctance to support the war? Yes, none other than former Labour PM Tony Blair, labelled by some as a war criminal, who happened to be popping in to see pal Donald, as a nominee to his Gaza "Board of Peace" And by the way, there is still no peace for the people of Gaza, nor for the Palestinians of the West Bank.
So yes, said Blair, Starmer should have stood "shoulder to shoulder" with Trump, just as he stood so proudly next to George W Bush in 2003, when British and US forces invaded Iraq.
At the time, nobody with any sense believed "Bliar"'s justification that the war was to prevent Saddam Hussein from using "weapons of mass destruction". So too, with today's lies about Iran's*nuclear bomb". But in passing, it's worth recalling that Iran's first nuclear reactor was a gift from the USA in 1955, as part of an "Atoms for Peace" initiative! Iran's scientists have, unsurprisingly, engaged in all kinds of nuclear research ever since.
As many commentators have pointed out, if George W Bush's Iraq war opened the current period of instability and ongoing war in the Middle East, Trump and his fanatical religious "crusaders" are hardly likely to end it. And certainly not when these "caricatures of imperialism" are the clearest expression of the rottenness inside the head of this degenerating system.
A mouse against a mammoth
History doesn't repeat itself, of course. So today it's no "farce", even if it seems like one. Our screens show "Secretary of War" and former Guantanamo guard, Pete Hegseth boasting of the USA's heroic "warriors" proving victorious over Iran's "barbaric savages".
He ends his speeches thanking "Jesus" for this righteous war against unbelievers. One could, for a minute, forget which century we're in. However Hegseth and his fanatical Christian ilk, whose delusions would in normal circumstances make them certifiable, have been gaining followers for Trump's MAGA for more than a decade!
Hegseth and his Israeli counterpart both claim that the proof of the Iranian state's "terrorist nature" is its targeting of the Gulf states. Never mind that these states have always harboured US/British bases. And that according to the rules of their own game, they're legitimate war targets.
Anyway, the "mouse" has no option but to use all weapons in its small arsenal against the mammoth, and this weapon can prove its greatest, causing Trump to take a step back, by disrupting natural gas and oil production and distribution... What's more, the mouse also controls the Strait of Hormuz and thus 20% of the world's oil supply.
The question all along has been which form the defeat of the mouse would take? Nobody seems to know, least of all Trump. Butitdoesn't matter too much, because the oil, financial, and stock markets always win, one way or another - that is, the winners are always those capitalists who sit on the pinnacle of the imperialist system. Knocking them all off and killing their system, is the only 'regime change" which the working classes here, in the US, in Iran and the rest of Middle East, indeed in the rest of world, need to fight for... We will need to come together to do so.