Middle East tinderbox – thoughts from afar

  Trying to get a cohesive sense of where the present Middle Eastern debacle is heading is not easy. Qatar says the crisis will bring world economies down as oil runs out. There are ominous reports from the fear-mongering Daily Mail that Russia is feeding Iran info on where to bomb US warships. Other more substantial indicators are that Trump is trying to persuade the Kurds to move in on the ground which analysts say would open a Pandora’s box, risking fragmenting Iraq as well as Iran