Chaos! Disaster!

Clausewitz said it first, but it took heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to put it in terms a fifth-grader could understand: "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth." The American/Israeli war on Iran is entering its third week, and it appears that the new ayatollah (son of the old ayatollah) has delivered that punch by closing the Strait of Hormuz. That's very bad news, if you happen to be reading the New York Times. "A disaster scenario is unfolding," the Newspaper of Record solemnly tells us. Apparently Messrs Trump and Netanyahu never noticed how easy it would be to lob artillery at ships traversing this chokepoint, or to seed its water with mines, or even to deploy a submarine if any Iran still has one afloat.

And it's not just Bibi and Orange Man who are on the back foot. "Europe Is in Great Danger," cries the headline on an op-ed by Anton Jager of Oxford University (what else?), writing from Brussels (where else?). The illustration shows a proud eagle on a plinth, surrounded by three complaisant dogs -- the leaders, one assumes, of Britain, France, and Germany. "The consequences are potentially calamitous," warns Mr Jager. But: "Alternatives to this vassalage exist," he points out. For example, there's Spain, which is competing with Canada to spend the least amount of its money on defense, the better to finance the existential battle against climate change.

But of course there's always the likelihood of a counterpunch. Pace Mr Jager, Mr Trump has already landed one, striking the military assets on Kharg Island, Iran's own vulnerable chokepoint, from which its discounted oil is shipped to China. There are limits, to be sure: shut down Kharg altogether, and the price of American gasoline will rise even more, perhaps above the four-dollar average beyond which the incumbent president seems always to lose the next election. In 2026, that would be Republican control of the House and Senate, whereupon Mr Trump would almost certainly be impeached. That would please the good people at Oxford and the New York Times Building, but (again: almost certainly) it wouldn't remove him from office.

The next punch is the ayatollah's.