It will take more than 10 days to get the destroyer HMS Dragon tooled up, battle ready and on station to protect Akrotiri and the island of Cyprus from Iranian drone and missile attacks. The RAF base there has already been hit by Iranian Shahed drones, probably launched by Hezbollah allies from Lebanon. True, two Wildcat light helicopters equipped with Martlet missiles have been sent on ahead of the destroyer. Britain is already in the widening war launched by America and Israel at the weekend. Ten countries, Arab Gulf nations and now Turkey, have been targeted and hit. British allies whom we have pledged to protect, Jordan and Qatar, have been struck, as has a British base in Bahrain. Roughly 300,000 Brits are vulnerable and many want to leave.
The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of world energy exports travel — 1.5 million barrels of oil a day — are all but closed. Prices in petrol, gas and food will hit us all here in the UK soon. The crisis is set to run for months. Professor Peter Frankopan, the global historian from Oxford, believes this is the biggest upset in world affairs of recent times, comparable to the attacks of 9/11.
