You’d think when your country goes to war you’d want it to prevail, but these are topsy-turvy times. Thus the dominant American commentary on Donald Trump’s ‘excursion’ in the Middle East – or should we call it a ‘special military operation’? – has come from pundits who yearn for Epic Fury to fail. Close-up and personal antipathy for their President far outweighs theoretical distaste for a tyrannical theocracy in another hemisphere. For these critics, the glaring deficiencies of the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’, Trump’s already shaky negotiated peace deal, are gratifying.

I’m not one of those people. Something about those huge, hoary, hairy portraits of ayatollahs in Tehran’s public murals looking down on an immiserated populace with contemptuous would-be wisdom has for years triggered in me a deep loathing akin to the Trump Derangement Syndrome suffered by US Democrats. I think: life is hard enough, and you disgusting, buzzkill twats destroy the possibility of joy for 93 million people.

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It was no coincidence that in 2014 the regime ordered mass arrests when young men and hijabless women began dancing on rooftops to the ebullient beat of Pharrell Williams’s hit pop song ‘Happy’. These crusty, crabby theocrats are anti-life. I was euphoric early in this war when the Supreme Leader and more than 50 other Iranian top officials were whacked in air strikes. Couldn’t have happened to nicer guys.

Yet until now I’ve kept schtum in print. From the beginning of this........

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