As the interminable stop-start ceasefires and negotiations between the USA and Iran drag on, it has become increasingly clear to me that Trump’s military is not winning the war, and his political cabal in the White House is desperately seeking a way out of the morass in which they find themselves. Or rather, it would be becoming clear if we really knew what the Americans’ strategic aim had been in the first place.
At various points, it has been suggested that the overall aim was: regime change; significantly degrading Iran’s military and the IRGC; destroying Iran’s missile arsenal and delivery mechanisms; stopping Iranian support for its assorted militia proxies around the Middle East; and ending Tehran’s nuclear programme and removing its store of highly-enriched uranium (HEU).
Or a combination of all of the above. How’s that all gone then? Well, let’s look at each of them in turn. First, degrading Iran’s military and the IRGC. There’s no doubt that both have been hammered from the air by the US and Israeli air forces and have suffered considerable losses, but they have not been destroyed or rendered ineffective. There are limits to what can be achieved from the air alone.
Arguably, the IRGC now has more power and influence than it did before the onslaught.
Next, Iran’s missile arsenal. Again, we have seen the reports of the attrition of Tehran’s missiles, their launchers, and the production facilities, but more recent information shows again that this has only been partially effective.
Some estimates suggest that up to 70 per cent of the Iranian stockpile remains intact and therefore remains a continuing danger to US, Israeli, and Gulf State interests in the region.
Moving on to ending Iran’s support for its various terrorist and militia proxies in the region, it’s obvious that this has not been achieved. Hezbollah, for example, continues to lob missiles into Israel and provoke the IDF into responding.
The Houthis still sabre-rattle about closing the Bab-el-Mandeb, the strait at the southern exit to the Red Sea, which would exacerbate the extant global crisis resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The fog of war is now clearing. America has lost the war in Iran
|Getty Images
And finally, Trump’s stated aim of ending Iran’s nuclear programme. Well is just hasn’t happened, has it, despite all the highly publicised bunker bomb attacks on various nuclear sites across Iran?
The surrender of Tehran’s HEU is one of the sticking points in the so-called peace negotiations, and the Iranians have been defiant to date. They’re just not prepared to discuss it, and whilst their facilities have been badly damaged, efforts to repair them are already underway.
So, if these or some of these were Trump’s strategic war aims – and a reminder that we don’t really know, and it’s possible that Trump doesn’t really know either – none of them have been satisfactorily achieved.
In other words, the USA is currently facing a strategic defeat in the Middle East, and if it continues like this for much longer, Iran will be able to claim a famous victory against “the Great Stan”.
I don’t think we can blame the US military too much for this debacle. Having attended the US Command & Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, as a student many years ago, I have always been impressed by the competence and professionalism of US military planners.
In my estimation, they knocked spots off ours. It would appear, therefore, that their advice has either been played down or ignored. It is just not possible that they didn’t flag up Iran’s, ahem, trump card of potentially closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Everyone knew that was likely, and yet the US politicians seemed to have ploughed on regardless. Well, as we say north of the Border, “if they didnae ken afore, they ken noo!”
Trump will hate to be portrayed as a loser, but at the moment, that’s what he is. His options remain to walk away from the whole affair and leave the whole region in a more dangerous state than it was previously, or go all in and commit vast amounts of military might, including ground troops.
Neither is attractive. We wait to see what happens next. In the meantime, quoting the President himself, “THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER”.