President Trump faces a volatile, fast-moving global crisis as Israel and Iran teeter on the brink of all-out war.

The situation is shifting by the moment in the wake of Israel’s attack on multiple sites in Iran in the early hours of Friday, local time. Iran launched a retaliatory barrage against Israel later on Friday.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said that Israel’s initial attacks had killed 78 and injured more than 320. Iranian officials have said they regard Israel’s actions as a declaration of war.

There has been no such explicit declaration from the Israeli side, but clearly the two nations are in the middle of a grave clash that could easily spiral even further.

Such a confrontation has the potential to scramble American politics, too.

In some ways, it already has.

The price of oil spiked as soon as the Israeli attack happened, rising by more than 8 percent at one point on Friday.

An elevated oil price for any significant length of time could feed inflation and dampen economic growth. That unpleasant combination is one reason why the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by roughly 1.8 percent on Friday. The broader based S&P 500 declined by more than one percent.

To be sure, a cooling of tensions between Israel and Iran could happen, calming oil prices and producing an instant rebound on the financial markets. But such a de-escalation is far from certain. The more negative scenario -- military actions by two foreign nations causing economic trouble in the U.S. -- would be an especially galling development for Trump.

Then there are the intertwined issues of Trump’s general attitude toward Israel, his pursuit of a fresh........

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