You can't legislate against stupidity. There will always be people whose reckless, irrational actions harm others. We're reminded of this every time we go to fill up at the service station, dumbfounded as the price per litre for fuel rises so fast it will soon go into low orbit.

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I'm not talking about the people who rushed to buy fuel at the outset of this war, the panic buyers. Their actions were selfish but entirely rational. No, I'm talking about the US president whose irrational actions have painted himself into a corner and imperilled the entire global economy.

The scale of the disaster was spelled out at the National Press Club by Dr Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency. He said this energy crisis, brought on by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, already eclipses those of the 1970s, which ushered in a period of stagflation - economic stagnation coupled with inflation.

The amount of oil already lost in this four week old crisis already equals what was lost during the 1970s oil shocks. And there's no end in sight.

So how did we get here?

Short answer: the US decided to join forces with Israel in an ill-considered military campaign with no apparent exit strategy. Australian motorists sensed there'd be fuel shortages a day or two after the war began. But Donald Trump at first seemed surprised, then indignant, and now furious that Iran played its (excuse the pun) trump card and closed the Strait of Hormuz over which it shares sovereignty with Oman.

It's said war is God's way of teaching Americans geography, a lesson Trump should have learned before he set out on this destructive excursion. Some 20 per cent of the world's oil and its related products have to traverse the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which at one point is only two nautical miles wide.

Any rational person would have sought advice about the risks from the........

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