The last 24 hours of eye-wateringly expensive missile duelling over the Persian Gulf has made one point above all.
A prolonged war could do calamitous damage to the global economy.
In just one day and night, Iran has hit energy targets in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Israel. So much for its military being defeated, or its leadership decapitated after almost three weeks of bombardment.
One attack alone, on the Ras Laffan gas plant in Qatar, using just a handful of missiles did an estimated $26bn worth of damage and will, we’re told, take years to repair.
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Even less liquid natural gas will now get to market, jacking up prices. The cost of gas for European consumers has already leapt 30%.
Cue a pell-mell chorus of apocalyptic predictions from analysts and economists, and that’s after just 24 hours of escalated energy attacks. Imagine what weeks of the same could do.
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I sat down with one of Iran’s most senior diplomats, Esmail Baghaei, in the foreign ministry in Tehran to ask him if this was a new policy of escalation from his government.
“You cannot expect a country that is under military aggression to exercise restraint. You have to direct your call to those aggressors, they started this…” he told me.
Oil and gas facilities have been hit before in this war, but the targets struck over the last day or two are of a different order of significance.
The attacks were not unprovoked. Israel had taken its attacks on the Islamic Republic to a new level with airstrikes on Iran’s south Pars gasfield and Iran responded without hesitation.
No wonder Donald Trump issued what looked like a rather panicky post ordering Israel not to attack gas fields again and warning Qatar against the same in no uncertain terms.
I asked Mr Baghaei if rising concern globally would provide some opportunity for diplomacy to prevail and for all sides to step back. Is there any kind of olive branch Iran could offer to its enemies?
“Do you think it would be realistic to offer an olive branch to those who want to behead you? They are killing our elites. They are targeting our leaders. We are facing acts of aggression and terrorism and this is unprecedented,” he said.
But the US president is also reported to be seriously considering sending in troops to secure the Strait of Hormuz. That would raise the spectre of weeks, if not months, more war.
If Iran can maintain the potency of its missile arsenal that could spell disaster for the Gulf’s precious energy installations with all that means for the global economy.
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It would be as wise as a shootout in a warehouse of crystal.
The prices of oil, gas, helium, plastics and fertiliser have been sent soaring already. But we may have seen nothing yet and if the doomsday scenario unfolds as predicted we will all feel the pain.
