When US president Donald Trump turns for advice on his war in Iran, it is sobering to consider who he finds.
There is his golfing friend Steve Witkoff, the spectacularly unqualified property developer who is Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East.
And Tulsi Gabbard, the spy chief who reassured Congress that intelligence experts believed Iran was “not building a nuclear weapon”, before backing Trump three months later and claiming it could build one “within weeks”.
But then, in a league very much of his own, there is the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth. The former Fox News host has denied allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse in his past, and continues to insist…