Jennifer Parker

Secondly, there's been a lot of reporting about the toll, the intensity of the conflict in March took on weapons stocks within the US military.

Now, it's not clear exactly what figures have been put out there are true and what's not true, but it would have taken a significant toll on their weapons stocks

and their future preparedness.

So that'll be something that they would be weighing up.

The third thing is internationally, because the US did not seek to state their case before intervening in Iran, did not try and raise it in the UN.

Now, the UN wouldn't have done much about it, but still raising it in the UN would have been a way to get people on side.

Did not consult friends and allies, in fact, has criticised allies and partners throughout this conflict.

re-initiating the intensity of the conflict we saw in March would again see this international pressure on the US.

So there's a lot of risk associated with that.

And Trump, I think, would be weighing up the risk of remaining in stalemate and the economic impact that he's having and also the reputational impact that he's having on the US versus the risks of re-entering the high intensity of the conflict and all of that domestic and international pressure that would come.

Well, it would seem, given that the UAE has come under attack, that we are seeing a return to the hot war.

And it was a fairly significant attack, so at least 15 missiles, 12 of which were ballistic missiles and a range of drones.

So Iran was always going to respond significantly to any US attempts to free up shipping going through that strait, and that's what we've seen in the last 24 hours.

What has happened is because ships have been attacked, civilian ships have been attacked by Iran, they have predominantly stopped going through the straits.

So normally you'd see 138 go through the strait a day.

Sometimes we're seeing five or six, sometimes 12.

Most of those linked to Iran.

We have about 2,000-ish ships trapped inside the Gulf and probably about 20,000 sailors.

And those ships that are trapped in there sitting in anchorages have been attacked by Iran.

So I imagine for any merchant mariner sitting in there, it would be an incredibly intense situation because it's not clear how Iran is determining what ships it attacks.