The first lesson of war is 'know your enemy' - the UK's now is Trump

The conduct of the unjustified, illegal US-Israel war against Iran grows ever-more disproportionate, dishonourable and deranged. The torpedoing of an Iranian navy ship off Sri Lanka by a US submarine demonstrated that for reckless Donald Trump, the whole world is his battlefield.

- Simon Tisdall

Diplomacy, sabotaged by Washington, has been replaced by unceasing airstrikes that are murdering and maiming hundreds of Iranian civilians. Trump's White House increasingly resembles a madhouse. And his "secretary for war", Pete Hegseth, rants about killing without mercy.

It's clear Iran's leaders, those who survive, are not going to roll over in a repeat of Trump's Venezuela coup.

Iran warned of a region-wide conflict if attacked again.

Trump is at war with US allies, too, having adopted George W Bush's crude Iraq war "for us or against us" maxim. The Gulf Arabs - and cruelly battered Lebanon - just want it to stop. Britain and Europe mostly want no part of it, but are being sucked in anyway. The global economy is tumbling into crisis.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, already charged with war crimes in Gaza, and Trump must now face prosecution by the international criminal court for atrocities perpetrated in Iran, notably the appalling 28 February bombing of a school in Minab. Many Americans and Israelis deplore their leaders' crazed behaviour. Yet these two thugs act in their name.