Crossword clue: a ditch in a desert (4, 5). I made that up. Real crossword clue in The Times yesterday: this won’t turn in the lock (5, 4) answer; canal boat.
What I’m on about is the closure of the Suez Canal. The Strait of Hormuz used to be the tinderbox to ignite an international crisis, after the Balkans burnt out, apparently it’s the canal now. I very much doubt this assertion. The canal opened in 1869 and it’s often incorrectly thought the event was marked by the premiere of Verdi’s Aida. (Aida was commissioned by the Khedivial Opera House in Cairo and first performed in 1871.)
Anthony Eden, that old smoothie later Lord Avon, managed to close it with assistance from French and Israeli forces. More significantly it was closed for eight years from 1967 after the Six Day War. Makes you think; our wars took anything from seven to a hundred years and, in modern times, up to seven years. In spite of a warm climate there are no flies on the Israelis, borne out by their coming top of the vaccinating league this year.
The canal will re-open in a few days. There are other problems that will not be solved so readily. The relationship between the US and China is the problem and Taiwan the tinderbox. If Russia can “reclaim” Crimea might not China take back Taiwan? I’d guess China has a sounder claim to Taiwan than Russia had to Crimea. Would the US intervene? China’s hegemony in Asia is beyond doubt, so only in a war of words. Meanwhile North Korea continues to be an entertaining side-show for everybody except its unfortunate citizens.
There are disturbing parallels between China today and an expansionist Germany in the 1930s, an analogy I’d rather not pursue.