There's no shortage of comment on the Iran War, but curiously none of them (that I've seen) considers the key question: imagine there were no governments, what then?

Let's try to repair that large omission.

Freedom from government will have to start somewhere, and I think it will be here; the USA will become FUSA, the "F" meaning Former. Then news of the huge benefits accruing will spread worldwide, and after a few decades the Governed Era will be over - so ending 10,000 years of mayhem.

During that transition period some societies will be free and others not, so predicting what might transpire is too complex for a short blog; let's suppose it's over, and so that the Persian Gulf is a center of trade, but not of rival governments threatening each other with death and destruction.

Oil will be the main product, and companies extracting and shipping it will get on with business, refining operational efficiency and adjusting prices to match demand. That's the way it ought to be, and can be, and will be. The situation will be optimal, and beyond that there's little to say.

But such a short ZGBlog would leave you unsatisfied, so here are a few further thoughts about the chaos governments are causing there. We should begin no later then 1947.

A club of governments calling itself "United Nations" voted and set up a new State, in the vacated part of the former Ottoman Empire called "Palestine." Jews wanted it, for their history began there, and had been immigrating for 50 years, but they foolishly demanded a State, and the UN arranged that. Nearby Muslim Arab nations bitterly opposed it and immediately made war. They were defeated - twice - and Israel took more land, as fruits of victory. By 2000 all neighbours except Iran accepted that it is there to stay. But Iran, run by theocrats whose supposed God is deeply hostile to the supposed Jewish God, wants nuclear weapons ready to destroy it.

The US government came to its aid and rained bombs on Iran to persuade it to abandon its nuclear plans, but (as wars often do) things bogged down; the IranGov hunkered down and closed Hormuz, thereby threatening all the world's commerce. The US Navy closed Iranian ports, so depriving Iran of most of its revenue. Governments never create anything, but are quite good at ruining what others have created. Matters are deadlocked.

None of the short history above would have taken place, absent government. Jews would have continued to relocate individually to their historic homeland, but would have erected no State and would have done business with their Arab neighbors. No nearby governments would have existed to menace them, and all would have prospered in their different ways; Arabs by selling oil, and Jews by being as inventive and industrious as they are worldwide.

So there would have been no wars including the present one, no pending crisis overhanging world commerce, no deadlock.

Does that splendid and rational outlook help dig the combatting governments out of the hole they have dug? - no. Mr Trump still pursues his MAGA vision, supposing that its "G" entitles him to be a world bully, instead of aiming for MAGZ. And none of them are going to say "Aw shucks, we're really messed up here, we'll wind up our affairs and go out of business." But the contrast between what now is, versus what then could and will be, is so sharp that it ought to be drawn every time anyone publishes a comment about it; and yet they all stay silent.

Except for the ZGBlog. Once again, you read it here first.

SAY HELLO to Stella Louise, who arrived on April 29th, turned your Editor into an instant great-grandfather and her parents into the happiest, proudest couple you could wish to meet.