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Until now, I'd never been a fan of cage fighting. But watching world events these past few days, I'm warming to it.

Gather up the angry old men responsible for so much misery, put them in a cyclone wire enclosure and let them fight it amongst themselves.

Pit the 75-year-old Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran's 86-year-old Ali Khamenei. Or 79-year-old Donald Trump against 72-year-old Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, also 72. Just fists, feet and walking frames. Those who want to watch the tournament are free to do so. The rest of us? We'll just get on with our lives.

Frankly, I'm sick of the lot of them. For what they're doing in their own parts of the world and for what they're risking in mine.

An indicted war criminal decides to unleash a barrage of airstrikes on Iran days ahead of planned talks aimed at de-escalating tensions over its nuclear program. He leaves the broker of those talks, the leader of the supposedly most powerful country on earth, looking sidelined, weak and a little sad. Trump's deal is a smouldering ruin - just like the one he promised between Ukraine and Russia.

Acting as much to save his own skin as Israel's - the action came immediately after the coalition government narrowly averted collapse - Netanyahu has made the possibility of another round of global energy shocks very real. It's not that Iran supplies the world with all its oil - it accounts for about 9 per cent - but it does command the Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world's supply passes. Choke that off and inflation will take off again around the world.

Within hours of the opening salvo, oil prices surged. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned an ongoing war between Israel and Iran could have a........

© Canberra Times