Iraq may now have to choose between America and Iran

To be fair to president Donald Trump, he has not rushed to confront with Iran. Last June, he stopped airstrikes from going ahead – the US military ‘cocked and loaded’ – after a US surveillance drone was shot down and after Iranian actions threatened international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. He did not – to the grave disappointment of the Saudis – order retaliatory strikes when Tehran orchestrated an attack on Saudi oil facilities by the Shia militia in Yemen in September. Publicly, the Iranians denied responsibility but I was in the room with a Middle Eastern contact when he made a video call to a senior official in the Revolutionary Guard. We interrupted this official at dinner in an opulent Tehran restaurant, all marble and fountains. ‘Yes,’ he chuckled as my contact asked him about the refinery attack, ‘that was us. Did you like it?’ That time, at least getting the language right, Trump said the US military was ‘locked