@adgaps I beg to differ. Dismissing, what you call, "tinfoil hat" "alarmist" is why we have so many wars in our history. Acknowledging and identifying potential scenarios is knowing what to do next.
Governments hire think-tanks to do exactly that. If these things are simply "tinfoil hat" "alarmist", they wouldn't bother hiring think-tanks.
We, the ordinary citizens, are simply saying what they already analyze weeks and more likely months, ago. We're usually late and reactionary. For all we know, their actions today were based on the reports submitted by those think-tanks.
Right now, there are reports on-going reports that Saudi Arabia has placed their army on the highest alert. That Iran already blocked the Straits. Qatar and UAE are on high alert as well. And this is just in the Middle-East.
History all tells us that these escalations can easily turn into a wider conflict, and hopefully not, world war. Look at World War I, and in particular, World War II.
There were signs leading to WWII in Asia-Pacific but those were ignored and dismissed as "alarmist" "tinfoil hat". In some circles, articles, knowledgebase, it was even mentioned how there is a school-of-thought that the Manchurian Incident was the real start of WWII in Asia-Pacific. And even if it wasn't, it pushed the region towards WWII.
As we say in Filipino, "Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararating sa paroroonan". History is filled with examples of these "alarmist" "tinfoil hat" which were dismissed and ignored.
Have we already forgotten the revelations of Snowden? Majority, if not all, of what he exposed were classified as "conspiracy theories", "alarmist", "tinfoil hat", for years. They were dismissed and ignored until Snowden came forward. We should've learned from that. ๐