Over the Easter weekend, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that it had successfully rescued the two crewmen from the downed F-15E fighter brought down by Iranian forces in Iran.
In separate operations, the pilot was extracted on April 3 and the weapons operator (WSO) a day later. US officials told Western media that the WSO survived after evading capture for 36 hours, but he is seriously wounded and receiving medical treatment in Kuwait.
The rescue operation appears to have resulted in a large number of Iranian casualties as both sides sought to reach the isolated airmen first. The eventual success of the mission came at considerable cost.
Whilst one can never put a financial price on human lives, the US lost, in addition to the shot-down F-15E Eagle, two special forces Super Hercules transport aircraft, one A-10 Warthog ground attack jet, several helicopters, and suffered a number of personnel wounded, plus other aircraft damaged. A conservative estimate for the cost of the operation would be upwards of $500million.
Personally, I am not convinced that the rescue of the two downed airmen, welcome as it is, was the triumph of military ops that it is being portrayed as in some media outlets.
I’m not saying any other nation would have been able to do it better, but basically, the rescuers had to be rescued, which is never a sign of an operation running smoothly or to plan.
It appears to me that, while painted as an all-out effort to rescue aircrew, which is commendable, it was more to do with preventing Iran from gaining a valuable bargaining chip and propaganda coup. In other words, rescuing the airmen may not have been the primary motivator.
Avoiding handing Iran a weapon in future negotiations, whenever they might take place, was probably was. Eyebrows were also raised over Trump’s somewhat intemperate rant on his Truth Social platform about what would happen to Iran if the Strait of Hormuz were not opened to all shipping within 48 hours.
Donald Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place of his own making - Lt Col Stuart CrawfordThis translates to early morning on Wednesday UK time. So far, Iran has not budged, although we are assured that talks between the belligerents are ongoing.
It would come as no surprise if this deadline is extended in the face of continuing Iranian intransigence; to date, Trump has issued at least five such deadlines in the conflict and has adhered to none of them. And there is little sign of Iran caving in.
So, what happens next? It seems that Trump is faced with a binary choice if Iran ignores his demands. He either declares victory anyway and withdraws US forces from the region, or he goes all in and commits the ground troops, which will be necessary for either seizing Kharg Island or the Strait of Hormuz, or possibly both.
If he chooses the former and walks away, then Iran will rightly be able to claim a great victory in that it stood up to the military might of the world’s superpower and survived, battered but unbowed. It will be a total humiliation for Trump.
If he goes all in, then so much for his pre-election pledge of ‘no more foreign wars’. He’ll be committing the USA to a major military adventure without knowing when or how it will end. Trump is caught between a rock and a hard place, and it’s all of his own doing.