The crackpot president of the United States of America has so snarled up the gangplank to truth these past 29 months that no matter how much “evidence” he and his crew produce to prove that the Iranians have been trying to blow up oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman – or not quite blow them up – the pictures have a kind of mesmeric quality about them.

Donald Trump’s 2017 inauguration photos were edited to “prove” that there were more supporters on the Washington Mall than actually went there. And now his administration, anxious to prove that the Iranians are attacking oil tankers, releases video footage of Iranians actually removing a limpet mine from the hull of a Japanese vessel.

Well that proves it then, doesn’t it? Those pesky Iranians can’t even bomb their targets professionally – so they go back later to retrieve a mine because it probably says “Made in Iran” on the explosives.

Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Show all 17 1 /17 Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Iran claims that in this picture released by Iran state TV, their surface-to-air missile is seen as it shoots down a US surveillance drone EPA Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures This photo shows US RQ-4A Global Hawk unmanned surveillance drone. A drone of this model was shot down by Iran on Thursday 21 June AFP/Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures An oil tanker is on fire after it was subject to a suspected attacked at the Gulf of Oman on June 13. The US has blamed Iran for the attack Reuters Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Iran claims that in this picture released by Iran state TV, debris from the downed US drone is seen after it was recovered from Iranian waters AFP/Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Smoke billows from an oil tanker after it was subject to a suspected attacked at the Gulf of Oman on June 13 Reuters Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures US President Trump holds up a signed executive order to increase sanctions on Iran on 24 June AP Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Iranian President Rouhani stated in a televised address that the White House is "afflicted by mental retardation" following the increase in sanctions on 25 June EPA Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures An Iranian navy boat tackles the fire on the Norwegian owned Front Altair oil tanker after it was hit in a suspected attack AFP/Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Iran claims that in this picture released by Iran state TV, debris from the downed US drone is seen after it was recovered from Iranian waters AFP/Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Smoke billows from an oil tanker after it was subject to a suspected attacked at the Gulf of Oman on June 13 Reuters Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures A screenshot from a video released by the US Department of Defense that the US claims to show Iranian removing an unexploded limpet mine form the hull of the Japan-owned ship that was attacked in the Gulf of Oman on June 13 Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures An item reportedly found on the Japan-owned oil tanker that was attacked on June 13 in the Gulf of Oman AFP/Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures A handout photograph from the US Department of Defense shows a composite material that the US claim was left behind on the hull of the Japan-owned oil tanker following the removal of an unexploded limpet mine Getty Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures A view from the cabin of an Iranian navy boat as it tackles the fire on the Norwegian owned Front Altair oil tanker after it was hit in a suspected attack EPA Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Release by US government A picture released by U.S. Central Command shows damage to the hull of the oil tanker Kokuka Courageous. The picture suggests that the ship is 'likely' to have been hit by a mine as the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo moves to blame Iran for the suspected attack Reuters Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Smoke billows from an oil tanker after it was subject to a suspected attacked at the Gulf of Oman on June 13 Reuters Tensions high as Trump approves new Iran sanctions: In pictures Release by US government A picture released by U.S. Central Command shows damage to the hull of the oil tanker Kokuka Courageous. The pictures suggests that the ship is 'likely' to have been hit by a mine as the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo moves to blame Iran for the suspected attack EPA

Because that would give them away, wouldn’t it? Then it emerges that the tanker crew believe they were attacked with airborne munitions – and mines don’t fly. The crew on another bombed ship suggest a torpedo. And on the basis of this, Washington is now “building a consensus” among its allies for the “decisive” response which Trump’s Saudi chums are demanding against Iran in revenge for these and earlier non-lethal attacks off the Emirates.

And our own beloved foreign secretary, ever mindful that he needs a majority of the party’s most faithful 120,000 votes to make him the next Tory Ayatollah, is “confident” that those wretched Iranians were behind the mining attacks. Presumably the hojatoleslam – for so Jeremy Hunt must remain unless he becomes the Supreme Leader – also believed the doctored pictures of the crowds welcoming Trump’s presidency on the National Mall in Washington.

Personally, I suspect the Iranians have been up to their old mining tricks in the Gulf, first practised in 1988 on the supertankers which the US Navy was escorting up to Kuwait at the end of the Iran-Iraq war – when it turned out that the American warships had to hide behind the tankers in case they, too, got mined. On that occasion, the Americans actually found a crew of Iranians rolling mines off a clapped-out old landing vessel. They captured the Iranians sailors and even gave them the option of political asylum in the Land of the Free. Foolish chaps, they all declined the offer.

Besides, if Hezbollah successfully fired an Iranian-supplied sea-to-sea missile at an Israeli naval gunboat off Lebanon in 2006 – which they did, setting the ship alight and killing several of the Israeli crew – I doubt if Tehran has many scruples about teaching the Houthis how to use drones for rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia.

When US munitions – dropped by the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates – are blowing up Houthi rebels, schools, hospitals, wedding parties, etc, in Yemen – why should it be surprising if the Houthis use Iranian munitions to try to blow up Saudi airports? With a little more training, the Houthis might even reach the technical prowess of their Saudi and Emirati enemies by also firing rockets at schools, hospitals and wedding parties, etc, in Saudi Arabia.

There’s also a “Suez” feel about all this. When the ever more exasperated Anthony Eden plunged with the French and Israelis into the Suez fiasco in 1956, Eisenhower had to send Dulles to London to rein in the British prime minister. Eden had himself become a bit bananas, claiming that Nasser, whose country he was planning to invade, was the “Mussolini of the Nile”. Dulles’s instructions were to tell Eden: “Whoa, Boy!” For months afterwards, Eden was still lying to the Commons, insisting that the whole shambles had NOT been hatched up with the Israelis – which it had – his false denial of the plot actually believed by most of the Tory party at the time and probably by a majority of Brits.

I guess that’s why I find something profoundly odd about the whole US-Iranian conflict-to-be. A couple of days ago, back in Beirut after a long road journey across Lebanon, I forced myself to read through the past months of news reports on the coming war between the US and Iran – even though I believe, and continue to feel certain, that this impending Armageddon is a figment of the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo imagination. And of the imagination of the American media – which is fearful that Trump might go to war but, given its rousing headlines let alone its reports, even more frightened that he might not go to war.

Perhaps it’s the sheer exhaustion of reading through the volumes of mendacity from the White House on Trump’s support for the Middle East’s vicious Arab dictators and head-choppers – and corpse-chopper-uppers – that I’d almost convinced myself that it was the deceitful, lying, belligerent Iranians who reneged on the solemn nuclear deal, falsely claiming that Washington had not honoured the agreement.

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But then, of course, I remembered that it was the deceitful, lying, belligerent Americans who reneged on the solemn nuclear deal, falsely claiming that Tehran had not honoured the agreement.

But that’s life in Trumpworld right now.

The Iranians, who have always understood the west much better than the west has ever understood the Iranians, know very well how to deny a drone here and a limpet mine there while ever more diligently tugging another feather or two out of the American eagle. The Iranians are no innocents.

There are no good guys in this story. And sure, if Iran tries to close the Straits of Hormuz, America can react with that concensus-built “decisive response” called for by the Saudis and underwritten by Hojatoleslam Hunt. But Iran is not quite that stupid. Why should the Islamic Republic fight the Americans when it was the US which humbled its principal post-revolution enemies: the Taliban and then Saddam and then Isis? The Iranians were – or should have been – extremely grateful.

In the real world, of course, there should be a military alliance between the US and Iran. But Washington no longer moves through any known orbit. If you want to understand the Trump-Bolton Middle East policy right now, I guess all you can do is visit patients in any mental hospital and they’ll fill you in.