How Israel-Iran war sent ripples of fear through the global maritime trade

Sometime in early 1988, while the nine-year war between Iran and Iraq was still raging, veteran British publisher Abdullah Jonathan Wallace paid a visit to his old friend, Bahrain’s information minister Tariq Almoayed.
As they drove out of Manama to Tariq’s home on another island in Bahrain’s archipelago, Wallace looked seaward and was shocked to see a task force of US Navy ships moored in the Persian Gulf.
“Tariq! Look! Ships!” Wallace excitedly said to the Bahraini minister.
Almoayed, who was…