Brent crude oil surged to US$126 (£94) a barrel after US president Donald Trump announced that he was willing to prolong the blockade of Iranian ports for “months if needed”. This conflict has been billed as a matter of who can absorb the most pain. And Trump is betting on it being the US.

Trump has been rather bullish in his public pronouncements of late, declaring that Iran is in a “state of collapse”. Reports that the country’s inflation rate has risen to 50% from 40% since the war began at the end of February would seem to back this assessment.

The damage done to Iran’s economy will be made worse if the country is forced to shut down oil production due to a lack of storage capacity, something Trump is also confident about. He told Axios: “The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig.”

Now in its eighth week, the conflict is having knock-on effects throughout the region and beyond. Perhaps the most telling sign this week was the announcement by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that it was quitting Opec, the oil producers’ cartel.

Adi Imsirovic, an energy expert at the University of Oxford, believes that while this decision has been brewing for some time – UAE and Opec’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, are at loggerheads over the civil war in Yemen and conflicts in Sudan and across the Horn of Africa. But the war has sharpened political sensibilities across the Gulf. Abu Dhabi has been unhappy about the lack of support from the Gulf Cooperation........

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