DC Edit | As War Rages in Iran, World Will Pay the Price

US President Donald Trump says American strikes in tandem with Israel have knocked out most of the ships, fighter aircraft and radars of Iran’s military. In testifying before the Senate, the Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby attempted to deflect domestic criticism by saying that killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an Israeli operation. But Mr Trump denies that Israel, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had forced him into launching the war that has engulfed the whole of the Middle East.

As the war spirals even in Iran’s slowing counterstrikes but embroiling the entire neighbourhood of Arab nations, the eight billion people of the world will be paying the price for this needless warmongering of the leaderships of the USA and Israel. While no one, including Mr Trump, has any idea of when the war may end, people will be coughing up more from their wallets as the war has disrupted ocean freight and air cargo supply chains way beyond just oil.

The millions stuck in the travel chaos caused by the closure of airspace and airports in the Middle East that serve as transit hubs to Africa, Europe, USA, and beyond, have been the worst of the early sufferers from the fallout of the war. Those flying into the war zone of 12 nations around Iran have had to live through a graver crisis. The disruptions have been global with travellers scrambling to get flights skirting the danger zone even as prices have been soaring.

The stranded travellers will not, however, be the only ones suffering the Iran war effects. The prices of goods on supermarket shelves are bound to rise as supply chains have been messed up. Even before they feel the pinch of inflation in the price of food and goods, the people will soon be paying more for fuel or gas. Oil prices have climbed 15 per cent since the war broke out on Saturday even as natural gas prices are surging in Europe and Asia.

The Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route to about 20 per cent of world oil supplies, has been virtually shut with just two of an average of 80 gas and oil tankers and 160 cargo carriers moving daily through the narrow strip that has enormous global supply chain implications. Thousands of ships are lying idle in the Persian Gulf waters, afraid to move into the Strait even as insurance rates are rising while others are forced to use the Suez Canal which they may have been skirting because of fear of Houthi action, besides marauding pirates.

Mr Trump’s plan to get the oil trade moving again is still in its infancy. Escorting ships in the Strait of Hormuz while fighting an all-out war may be beyond the US Navy’s capabilities. As the price of the bellwether Brent crude spikes, India too may be worried despite its stockpile of 45 days. India can invoke force majeure conditions to buy more Russian oil and transport it on the Vladivostok-Chennai corridor or the Suez Canal and Red Sea, but not without running afoul of Mr Trump and his aides who may frown on it.

As the war effects take greater hold after five days, the biggest of stock market operators to the smallest of mutual funds holders are being devastated, with losses just in India’s bourses running into multiples of billion rupees every day as the indices sink. This is a war started by Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu on the pretext that Iran would have attacked if they had not taken pre-emptive action. But it is the world that will be paying the price.