The world continues to toywith normality despite profound changes to the global economy caused by the Iran War. Stepping into the future,George Grundylooks back on this time of strange societal cognitive dissonance.

LOOKING BACK, April 2026 seems like a glimpse of transient illusion, a moment in the before-times when we toyed with normality, as if we didnt know how profoundly things had changed.

Americas markets were atrecord highs, despite the wave of oil supply disruption thatsweptacross the world. The supermarket shelves were still full, and we drove our gas-guzzling cars and planned ourholidayswithout a care.

It was a time of make-believe, of strange societal cognitive dissonance, in which we knew that the Strait of Hormuz was closed and what that meant, but chose to live our best lives while we still could. But day after day, the Strait, which had carried around 25 per centof the worlds oil, remained stubbornly closed. Every passing day meant another 20 million barrels of oil taken from the worlds economy, and the crisis gradually became more severe.

First in line were the poorer countries of South-East Asia, but soon enough,Anthony Albanesewas on our television screens, soberly announcingthe rationingof diesel, then all fuels, as our oil-refiningsupplier nationsthemselves ran dry.

By the end of May, the Australian economy had essentially ground to ahalt, and what few liquid resources remained were prioritised for the police, army, health and food production. Every single item on the supermarket shelf had been harvested, packaged, or delivered using machinery that ran on diesel fuel, so naturally, pricesrose, leadingto panic buying and scarcity.

Even as the war with Iran escalates and threatens global oil supplies and economic stability, critics argue Australia should distance itself from the conflict rather than risk deeper involvement.

So, the shelves were running bare, major supermarkets introduced daily limits and were forced to put guards on their doors. Channel Seven ran stories about fights breaking out in the aisles at Coles, just as hadhappenedduring COVID.

As a rich country, Australia made do. This country already producedthree timesas much food as we consumed, so even when fertiliser ran short, there was plenty of food. But price hikes hit the vulnerable the hardest, especially when so many businesses shut their doors as the economy came to a full stop.The government stepped in to stop theevictionof people already facing a cost-of-livingcrisisand now unable to pay rent or mortgage.Nevertheless, crime spiked, as itdoes.

It was in the developing world that the real damage was felt. Poorer Asian and African countries saw fuel shortages turn into food scarcity, which in turn led to social unrest and, for some,warwith their neighbours.

Sudan, for example,already had33 million people displaced or facing acute hunger and famine.In the end, it was the loss of aroundone-thirdof the worlds fertiliser, strangled on the wrong side of the Hormuz Strait, that did the most damage of all.

What looks like chaos on Americas streets is not a breakdown of authority, but the deliberate use of terror to manufacture fear, obedience and political survival.

Nearlyhalfof Indias imported fertiliser was cut off by the war, and the poor crop yields that followed affected nearly all of that countrys nearly 1.5 billion mouths to feed. As so often throughout human history, famine led to war, and war, in turn, caused more crippling famine.

Financially, there was chaos. By April 2026, a massive45 per centof the surging Dow Jones index capitalisation was made up of AI-linked stocks, so when the market turned downward, things were primed to move fast. Perhaps we were all too old to remember that during the1973 oil shock(caused by justseven per centof the worlds oil market being taken offline), it took nearlytwo yearsfor the market to collapse, but collapse it did, falling over 45 per centby the end of 1974 (the ASX fellnearly 60 per cent).

Ultimately, Trumps attack on Iran was seen as thestartof the collapse of the greenback as the worlds reserve currency. The U.S. was already39 trillion dollarsindebt. Trump had added over$3.5 trillionto that figure in the fourteen months he had been in power, meaning he was running a deficit of over $250 billion every month. As interest rates rose and the U.S. economy plunged into a deep recession, the situation became untenable.

By the summer, Trump faced an unprecedented situation. His approval numbers hadcollapsed, in great part due to Americans' fury at the record rise in grocery and gas prices.Trumps numbers dipped below the historic record low of22 per cent(held byHarry S. Truman), and across America, theNo Kingsmarches grew and grew.

Is Donald Trump's disruptive behaviour forcing the kind of crisis needed to trigger a reset?

Trump responded as he always had done, lashing out and condemning the protesters as paid agitators and communists. Eventually, there came a moment when the unrest was so widespread that Trump invoked theInsurrection Act, as he had longthreatened to do, and when active duty personnel, trained in the art of war rather than peace-keeping, opened fire on a crowd in Boston, all hell broke loose.

Trump attempted to declare martial law, prompting a number of his cabinet members to resign, and by the time of Novembers mid-term elections, the country was close to a state of civil war.

All of this mayhem and misery happened as a downstream effect of Americas wildly reckless decision to attack Iran. The consequences for the world had been both predictable and widelypredicted, but Trump had personally been themost hawkishwhen that fateful decision was made.

It was Trump who caused this global chaos. He never took responsibility, ofcourse. The rest of us dealt with the consequences.

Looking back, April seems like another time altogether. The past,they say, is a foreign country.

George Grundyis an English-Australian author, media professional and businessman. You can follow him@georgewgrundy.

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