A world war? Iran war draws in more than regional rivals

One war can fuel another. After the United States and Israel launched an operation that began, on day one, with the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Donald Trump expressed surprise at Tehran’s decision to draw in Gulf oil producers and disrupt global supplies.

From the ensuing energy crisis there are plenty of losers – and one big winner: Russia. Washington is now suggesting it may ease sanctions on Russian oil. The Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine had been feeling the pinch, but now – even at a discount – it is finding buyers, just as the Trump administration again pushes for concessions from Kyiv.

We’ll ask how Volodymyr Zelensky’s offer of drone technology to Gulf states measures up against Vladimir Putin’s offer to keep crude flowing; how cash-strapped Europeans will react; and, more broadly, at what point a war of the US and Israel’s choosing spreads so far and wide that it becomes a world war. With alliances such as NATO no longer a given, how should the world deal with the danger?

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Daniel Whittington, Ilayda Habip.