War hits wallets
Re: "The Iran war's lasting energy shock", (Opinion, March 20).
Although we should all be heading to electric vehicles rather than oil-guzzling cars, it simply isn't happening, so we do need oil. The petrol I buy has increased more than 50% in less than two weeks, and this is because President Trump and a friend of Israel are trying to destroy Iran, which has responded in a similar manner.
This is probably going to get worse given President Trump is threatening to "blow up" the world's largest gas field. This is vandalism against Iran and the whole world, really. All we see is more deaths, violence and destruction, hardly fitting for the possessor, although not the winner, of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Maybe I read the wrong papers, watch the wrong TV and listen to the wrong podcasts, but this and so many sources suggest these actions and others are designed to improve his "leader" image, unsuccessful, or to distract from the Epstein files, slightly successful as they aren't front page news at the moment.
Why not try peace and work to convince countries to change the way their government is run by setting such a great example? Look for such an example to follow, but definitely not the US or Iran and a lot of their neighbours.
Maybe it's time to start digging a bunker.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Energy gap widens
Re: "Oil shock could spur EV, hybrid sales", (Business, March 19).
Some believe the world is less sensitive to oil/energy prices now than in the 1970s, the last big oil price shock. This is due to new efficiencies, solar/wind and other green energy. Not so, as today there are just about twice as many people sharing our planet as compared to, say, 50 years ago.
Global warming and AI centres are huge new incremental users. So is the emergence of many developing countries and the broad use of IT. The global energy grid is more stressed now, not less. Even before this illegal war.
Paul A. Renaud
History rings loud
As I walked the mountainside cuttings of the Thai–Myanmar Death Railway near Hellfire Pass, where thousands died under wartime brutality, the present moment felt uncomfortably close to the past.
President Donald Trump has escalated military strikes on Iran and is now urging reluctant allies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery through which a large portion of the world's oil flows. Trump is considering forced regime change in Cuba and potentially North Korea next. Like an inattentive class lout, he has already forgotten Venezuela's Maduro.
History shows that global conflicts do not begin with a single dramatic event. They build through leaders deluded by their self-referencing strategic certainty. This is reminiscent of the prelude to World War II unfolding through multiple regional confrontations that rapidly merged into a global catastrophe.
Today's rhetoric -- threats, alliances under strain, and expanding fronts across the Middle East and Trump-lit tensions flickering across Yemen and Cuba -- should alarm anyone familiar with the lessons of the 20th century.
Alas, wars begun with confidence often outlive the men who start them.
Standing among the cruel graves of those lost to another era's strategic arrogance in the equatorial sunbake of Kanchanaburi, I am triggered by a sobering thought: history does not repeat itself exactly, but it metronomes towards the abyss with chilling recurrence. If we ignore those echoes, we risk stumbling towards another global conflagration. Humanity has not learnt from the First Great War, the war to end all wars.
Joseph Ting
