The first lesson of war is ‘know your enemy’ – and Britain’s enemy now is Donald Trump | Simon Tisdall

As the Iran disaster escalates, Starmer should treat the US president as someone whose actions threaten the lawful, democratic way of life everywhere

Nine days in, the conduct of the unjustified, illegal US-Israel war against Iran grows ever-more disproportionate, dishonourable and deranged. The torpedoing of an Iranian navy ship off Sri Lanka by a US submarine demonstrated that for reckless Donald Trump, the whole world is his battlefield. Diplomacy, treacherously sabotaged by Washington, has been replaced by unceasing airstrikes that are murdering and maiming hundreds of Iranian civilians. Trump's White House increasingly resembles a madhouse. War aims shift daily. A clueless, rambling president insists he must help pick Iran's next ayatollah. Meanwhile, his secretary for war", Pete Hegseth, rants manically about killing without mercy.

Nine days in, it's clear Iran's leaders, those who survive, are not going to roll over in a repeat of Trump's Venezuela coup. Their forces, though drastically outgunned, are succeeding in spreading pain across the Middle East, inundating defences with waves of drones and missiles. That's no surprise. Iran warned of a region-wide conflict if attacked again. Trump is now at war with US allies, too, having adopted George W Bush's crude Iraq war for us or against us" maxim. The Gulf Arabs - and cruelly battered Lebanon - just want it to stop. Britain and Europe mostly want no part of it, but are being sucked in anyway. The global economy is tumbling into crisis. In Trump's war on the world, there are no heroes, only victims. Spain's defiant leader, Pedro Sanchez, is one exception.