The reasons for Trump's change of heart, including tumbling stock markets and pressure from US allies in the Gulf, are not so hard to see. Hopes that the destructive war of tit-for-tat sabotage between America, Israel and Iran might be suspended were a particular relief in East Asia. Cratering markets in Japan, South Korea and Singapore were threatening a world-wide recession that would engulf America, too.

At home, big donors to the Republican party are pressuring the President to find a way out of the conflict. Republican candidates for November's mid-term elections are desperate for Trump to 'declare peace' and restore some measure of normality before the voters savage them.

While Trump's initial response to Iran's blockade of energy exports from the region were upbeat – the US is self-sufficient in oil, why worry? – it turns out that America's farmers rely on imports of fertiliser (which is made with hydrocarbons) from the Gulf.

American businesses and banks, meanwhile, are alarmed to see their international trading partners threatened with recession. It was Trump himself who let the cat out of the bag. Discussing his secret Iran 'talks' with reporters, he said: 'I just want as much oil as possible. I want to have the system lubricated.' Affordable energy is the key vulnerability for America and its allies. Without it, there is no Western economy – there is no West. And the Iranians know that now for sure.

Indifferent to the vast suffering of their own civilians, Iran's hardliners scent weakness. They know all too well that it's Iran's ability to strangle exports of oil, gas and fertiliser from the region – supplies making up around 20 per cent of the world's daily needs – that forced the US President's change of heart. Iranian media outlets are crowing that Trump has blinked first – and with some justification.

Iran's hardliners hope soaring fuel prices will split America from key allies such as Japan, South Korea and the Europeans, and their strategy is succeeding. The mullahs have few incentives to throttle back now. Besides, as Trump himself admits, it's no longer clear who in Iran – a vast territory the size of Western Europe – is in charge.

While both Tehran and Washington would welcome an end to this horrific exchange of fire, Benjamin Netanyahu – the prime minister of Israel, whose air force has played such a key role in the attacks – will be harder to persuade. The Jewish state feels it is in mortal danger from the Islamic Republic and its chants of 'Death to Israel'. Netanyahu has no intention of stopping the raids until the mullahs are crushed or, at the very least, have lost all ability to exploit nuclear technology. Neither outcome seems likely in the short term.

I fear that Trump and Netanyahu have started something they cannot stop. And that any 'peace' will merely be a ceasefire before the bloodshed – and paralysing economic crises – break out anew.