Kuala Lampur, May 17 -- We watch distant wars on our phones while sipping kopi-o, convinced that the chaos belongs to someone else.

We wait for the storm to pass. This time, the storm will not pass. It will come for our wallets, our factories, and our ringgit.

And when the oil price spikes past US$150 (RM592) a barrel as the US-Iran war continues, Malaysia will discover that "tumultuous" is a polite word for economic surgery without anaesthesia.

When the war erupted, oil spiked to more than US$100. And here is the cruel irony that we miss: Malaysia is not Saudi Arabia. We are a marginal exporter.

Yes, Petronas will book higher revenues. But the other half of our economy - manufacturing, electronics, palm oil refining, tourism -runs on...