Imminent war with Iran?

The headlines look ominous. The US has dispatched a carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, and a second one is due to arrive soon. The State Department ordered the evacuation of all non-essential personnel from Iraq:

The U.S. State Department has ordered the departure of non-essential U.S. Government employees from Iraq, both at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and the U.S. Consulate in Erbil. Normal visa services at both posts will be temporarily suspended. The U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq.

We had a threatening Presidential tweet over the weekend.

Reuters reported that Exxon Mobil is evacuating foreign staff from an Iraqi oilfield near Basra:

Exxon Mobil has evacuated all of its foreign staff, around 60 people, from Iraq’s West Qurna 1 oilfield and is flying them out to Dubai, a senior Iraqi official and three other sources told Reuters on Saturday.

Though it was said to be a purely precautionary measure:

Production at the oilfield was not affected by the evacuation and work is continuing normally, overseen by Iraqi engineers, said the chief of Iraq’s state-owned South Oil Company which owns the oil field, Ihsan Abdul Jabbar. He added that production remains at 440,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Is the US about to attack Iran? Should you buy tail-risk insurance?

The full post can be found here.