The Atomic Snowglobe Starts To Settle, After Trump Slams It Down

Our Worst Fears Have Been Allayed But A Bullish America Has Added New Paths To A Future Apocalypse

Piers Morgan keeps asking why Iran was enriching uranium to 60%. A simple question from a simplistic man.

Yes, of course - 60% was totally unnecessary for peaceful research or medicinal purposes.

But, no, Iran didn’t want a Bomb.

Iran wanted to use its enrichment programme as leverage in negotiations, obviously.

Iran’s policy was probably an error, as I said live on Iranian state TV the other day. If you’re the weaker party, it’s a risk to turn up to negotiations slowly sharpening a sword, however blunt you say it is.

Nevertheless, this month’s US/ Israel attacks on Iran were unnecessary. Negotiations could have fixed the Iran nuclear issue and the past two weeks of violence were entirely the result of Israel playing on Trump’s propensity to find the spotlight.

Apparently, at a meeting in the early 1990s, Alistair Campbell asked Tony Blair's foreign policy advisor what Bibi Netanyahu is really like and he scribbled back “24 carat bullshitter”. Well, quite.

I feared the worst last night. Even just the prospect of Iran shutting the Strait of Hurmuz - the world’s most vital oil artery - could be sufficient to trigger a major recession.

And the outcomes were terrible: hundreds dead; the taboo on attacking Iran broken, and America very explicitly revelling in its own multiple deceptions - making future diplomacy across the world all the more difficult.

And yet, and yet… the resultant Twelve Day War has been a disaster, not a cataclysm. Trump has accepted Bibi’s bullshit engagement ring, not the wedding band. He’s just told Israel to “calm down” and their jets turned right around.

It’s interesting how Trump has enough sense - and power - to shut down escalation. He isn’t the “Peace President”, but at least for now he seems willing and able to evade new forever wars.

So, can things still go really wrong?

The old risks remain: how about if Bibi launches further strikes - say, to carry out those assassination threats - but miscalculates Iranian missile capacities? Then Israel runs out of Iron Dome defences and is defenceless to attacks on civilian areas; Israelis flee from the country, its economy tanks. In fact, Iran has already overwhelmed missile defenses and hit some major targets, including Israel’s stock exchange, which must surely have played into Bibi’s willingness to back out.

But now there are new risks, too. What if the Islamic Republic decides to evade international inspections and enriches to 90%? That wouldn’t just be symbolic - it’s weapons-grade uranium, usable in a bomb. What if they smuggle it to terrorists for use in the US or Israel?

We’re not yet at the point of Tel Aviv flattening Tehran — but the possibility has now crept into view.

And if that doesn't happen, we risk something else: the status quo. Gaza pulverised. Netanyahu forever clinging to power. Iran demonised and isolated, not for what it’s done, but for what it's imagined to be.

The snowglobe that is our world remains intact. But it has been heavily shaken as Trump slams it down.