Despite the impressive ability of the combined might of American and Israeli forces to decapitate the Iranian regime and seriously degrade its military resources, there’s a growing fear in Washington that all is not well.
As spiking oil and gas prices threaten President Trump with gathering economic pain and a domestic political backlash, there are even those close to him in the White House urging an exit plan which would bring hostilities to a quick end.
Last night’s confirmation by the Pentagon that 140 US soldiers have been wounded in the conflict so far, after seven were killed in the first 10 days, will only embolden them.
Yet much of the increasing concern is caused by the President himself. The endgame – what victory would look like – remains as much of a mystery as it did when he began the attacks on Iran 12 days ago.
Meanwhile his messaging on the war’s purpose and progress has become a confusing shambles.
One minute earlier this week he was claiming America is ‘way ahead of schedule’ in achieving its military aims and that it will all be over ‘very soon’. Next minute he’s musing aloud – ‘we could go further’, quickly adding ‘we’re going to go further’.
In one interview he refuses to rule out ‘boots on the ground’. In the next interview he says he’s ‘nowhere near’ considering that. Last week he said his goal was Iran’s ‘unconditional surrender’. This week he opined that ‘if we can’t have [regime change], we might as well get it over with right now’. In other words, quit.
This is no way for a war leader to conduct a war. Keir Starmer was wrong to refuse America use of two US bases on British territory (even if he did quickly U-turn), unnecessarily throwing a spanner into the Anglo-American works for the sake of some nebulous pieties about international law. But he was right to avoid going to war alongside America and Israel.
Of course, contrary to Labour spinners implying Starmer bravely and explicitly rejected US requests to join in, there was no need to say no to Trump because (bar the use of the bases) he never asked us for our help in the first place. Given the current scandalous state of our military unpreparedness we had nothing useful to bring to the conflict anyway, which is why our involvement never even crossed Washington’s mind.
President Trump’s messaging on the war’s purpose and progress has been a ‘confusing shambles’, writes Andrew Neil
Even so, it was wise to stay out. You cannot easily go to war comfortably or confidently alongside an ally who changes the war aims from day to day and his assessment of the course of the war from hour to hour. Nor is it sensible to stand shoulder to shoulder with an ally who has made some fundamentally wrong calls.
Some of those close to Trump say he was genuinely surprised when the Tehran regime didn’t simply crumble after the first US-Israeli onslaught, especially since its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was an early fatality. If so, he was clearly badly briefed on the resilience and fortitude of the tyrants of Tehran.
The Israelis claim up to 75 per cent of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed. Even thus depleted, Iranian missiles and drones are still wreaking havoc in the Gulf States. Not as many are being launched as before but still enough to discombobulate America’s allies in the region, spreading fear, an exodus of expats and tourists while disrupting oil and gas facilities, airports and embassies.
The US says 43 Iranian naval vessels have been destroyed and that the regime no longer has a functioning navy. Even so, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, a strategic choke-point for the global economy through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes.
President Trump says the US Navy will open it again. In truth it is in no position to do so. It is months away from being able to organise the sort of protected convoys which kept the Strait open in past Gulf conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War in the late Eighties. France is only talking about providing escort once the conflict is over.
The failure of America to plan ahead for this contingency is a telling sign that Trump did not properly think through the consequences of unleashing attacks on Iran – and was ill-prepared for it.
This matters because the longer the Strait of Hormuz stays closed the more the rest of us will feel the economic pain as energy prices soar and the global economy tanks.
Of course these are early days. Yesterday morning US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, a blowhard who deploys the offensive and puerile rhetoric of military video-games to describe US action, promised even more intensive missile attacks on regime infrastructure.
Masked Basij militants, a volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in downtown Tehran
It will naturally continue to take its toll on the regime. But perhaps not fatally so. After 12 days of brutal attacks, the regime is certainly battered – but not broken. It remains in control, still with fight in it. Senior regime figures are now in hiding, lest they are blown away like their very recent predecessors. But they post messages to show they’re still in charge.
There are, as yet, no perceptible cracks in the regime, no institutional breakdown.
Iran’s military remains intact enough to target and often hit high-value infrastructure across the Gulf. There have been no uprisings. Fresh memories of the massacre of protesters in their thousands earlier this year is enough to deter even the bravest. There is a heavy security presence on the streets, with plenty of checkpoints in Tehran and other cities.
In Isfahan, a large number of the Basij, the regime’s volunteer goons, have been roaming the streets on motorcycles, brandishing guns and flags of the Islamic Republic.
In a text message sent to millions of Iranian mobile phones on Sunday the intelligence wing of the Revolutionary Guard warned that street protests ‘will be considered an example of direct co-operation with the enemy’. Just in case anybody didn’t fully comprehend the message, it added: ‘If they show sympathy for the enemy, there is a shoot-to-kill order.’
So hopes of a quick collapse look forlorn. Even Trump’s hope that a faction within the regime would emerge with which he could do business – regime reconstruction, Venezuela-style, rather than regime change – has failed to materialise.
Indeed the new Supreme Leader is the deceased one’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, even more hardline than his father, even more closely aligned with the Revolutionary Guard, the dictatorship’s main arm of repression.
The regime strategy now, as one Iranian source put it to me, is ‘to hang on until Trump moves on’, counting on his notoriously short attention span to lead him to lose interest in a stalemate.
Mr Trump did not properly think through the consequences of unleashing attacks on Iran, writes Andrew Neil
Meanwhile Khamenei Jr and his hardline national security leader, Ali Larijani, sit atop a chain of command which still functions, still has the ability to fan a regional conflict designed to disrupt global trade and travel.
Twelve nations have now been drawn into the conflict, whose global ramifications have only just begun. Already you can discern potential winners and losers.
The Gulf States, like the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain, have proved remarkably resilient in the face of Iranian attacks. But an undefeated, even if badly wounded, Iranian regime is the worst of all possible outcomes for them.
Tehran would retain its ability to terrorise commercial capitals such as Dubai and Doha when the mood took it, undermining their ability to rebuild their hard-won reputations for security and stability in a dangerous part of the world.
More than America, more even than Israel, the Gulf States now have a vested interest in regime change. But it is not clear that will be uppermost in Trump’s mind if he’s looking for a way out.
Russia is already a clear beneficiary of the attacks on Iran. The spiking of oil and gas prices couldn’t have come at a better time for Trump’s pal, President Putin. The extra fossil revenues will replenish the Kremlin’s coffers just as they were running low. A protracted war of attrition in the Gulf would benefit Moscow even more. Not just in terms of revenue but in downgrading Ukraine in American and European eyes, as the US focused its military might in the Gulf and Europe struggled to cope with yet another soaring energy-price crisis. Both would sap Western support for Ukraine, in terms of military and financial aid, which would play into Putin’s hands.
Indeed, a long war that depleted Western military stocks, diverted attention from Ukraine and perhaps even made Russian oil and gas essential for European economies once more, is a prize of which Putin, at least until now, could only dream.
Contrary to much nonsensical scaremongering we are not on the brink of World War Three. But we could be at the start of a regional war with global consequences.
China is watching developments closely too. Iran has asked Beijing to provide anti-ship missiles. It is not clear China will oblige. A lot of China’s oil and gas comes through the Strait of Hormuz. So far only Iranian tankers bound for China have been given safe passage.
Plus China, which has been building up oil and gas supplies, has over 200 days-worth in reserve. Unlike Western Europe it is not in any immediate danger of shortfalls.
It also has its eyes on a bigger prize: Taiwan. Trump’s Iranian venture is said to have whetted President Xi’s appetite for annexation of what he regards as a rogue Chinese island. Very recent US intelligence reports indicate he has tasked the People’s Liberation Army with a blueprint for invasion or naval strangulation of the island by 2027. Depending on events in the Gulf, some fear he might even bring that forward.
The US Navy has 11 massive carrier fleets. But regular maintenance means only three or four can be deployed at any one time. Two are already on active duty in the Iranian theatre. The US Navy is meant to have a minimum of 355 warships. It currently has 290.
The Chinese Navy is bigger and concentrated almost entirely on the western Pacific, where Taiwan is located.
This is not to say a Chinese attack is inevitable. It is never easy to discern what is in Xi’s mind. But current events in the Gulf make it more rather than less likely, especially if Xi concludes Trump is distracted and stretched by other matters.
The joint US/Israeli assault on Iran was based on the belief that by decapitating the regime’s political and military leadership and destroying the infrastructure that facilitates their repressive rule, it would collapse or at the very least be forced to give up its nuclear ambitions, missile arsenal and evil desire to wipe out Israel.
For now, that belief is being sorely tested. As is Trump’s domestic standing.
For the first time in any recent American war of choice, the attacks on Iran are unpopular with a majority of the American people right from the start. Usually Americans rally round the flag to begin with, disillusion setting in when things turn sour. Not this time.
This is politically fraught for Trump given the crucial mid-term elections coming up in November, when Republican control of the House and even the Senate is at stake. Republican leaders from swing states are already calling the White House, urging Trump either to secure a quick victory in Iran or just declare victory anyway and get out.
As I’ve already indicated, powerful figures in Trump’s circle agree.
Trump has gambled with the rest of his presidency and it is by no means clear the gamble will pay off.
The collateral damage elsewhere – the Gulf States, Ukraine, Taiwan – could be enormous. And the stagnant European economies, including our own, are in no condition to weather a global recession, which could well be on the cards.
Britain is particularly vulnerable. Labour’s profligate borrowing in two successive Budgets has undermined our fiscal defences.
Our borrowing costs will soar if we need to run even bigger budget deficits because of collapsing revenues or the extra cost of new subsidies for household energy bills. Chancellor Rachel Reeves seems oblivious to the dangers. Starmer doesn’t seem to understand them. He was right to keep his distance from Trump’s Iranian adventure – but it could bring him down anyway.
As with every previous Middle East war these are parlous times for incumbent governments.
