Israel-Iran-US – An Update

Since writing about this crisis last week (see article here), events have moved at a bewildering pace.

To recap:

Iran was in negotiations with the US about its nuclear programme (the US, under Trump #1 having pulled out of the JCPOA, in favour of a policy of ‘maximum pressure’). President Trump, having set a 60-day deadline for progress, inadvertently gave Israel a target for launching action - which it duly did on day 61, with devastating effect, destroying nuclear sites, ballistic missile launch sites, ballistic missiles and what few air-defence systems Iran had left after the previous two rounds of strikes, as well as killing a number of Iran’s senior military commanders and nuclear scientists. After initially seeming to oppose the Israeli strikes, President Trump then embraced them, identifying the US with Israel and commenting ‘we control the skies’.

US Moves, Counter-moves and Bluffs

The US moved military assets into the Region and turned round the USS Nimitz and her strike group from the S China Seas.  All seemed set for imminent military intervention.  However, after marching the troops to the top of this hill, President Trump seemed to get cold feet on an actual strike, saying he would make a decision ‘in two weeks’ (the epithet TACO never seemed more accurate). The EU spotting an opportunity to be relevant, began negotiating with Iran, desperate to avoid an escalation in a region already in turmoil following Israeli strikes on Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the ongoing conflict in Gaza.  President Trump decried these efforts, insulting Macron and stating ‘Iran does not want to talk with the Europeans, they want to talk to us’ (despite statements from the Iranians that they would only speak to the US if and when Israel ceased to bomb Iran).

Whether Trump’s ‘two weeks’ was the truth, a bluff, or intended misdirection, we will probably never know. And we will also probably never know the extent of Israeli lobbying (as President Clinton once said after a typically bruising encounter with a younger Netanyahu ‘Tell me, who is the f”£$%^& superpower here?’). But whichever it was, two days later, in an audacious and clearly very well-planned (and perfectly executed) military operation comprising 125 aircraft firing 75 weapons, seven B2 bombers (which flew 36 hours sorties) dropped 14 bunker-busting bombs on the Iranian nuclear site buried deep under a mountain at Fordow.  No one knows for sure how effective the strikes were – President Trump and SoS Hegseth both claim to have ‘obliterated’ the site.  The IAEA in a report released this morning commented that the damage was ‘likely to have been extensive’.

Leading to Swift Action…

To paraphrase Shakespeare – ‘If it were…done, ‘twere well it were done quickly’.  Sir John Sawers was right: there was nothing to be gained from delay.  In my previous note, I suggested Trump had been presented with a choice – a pitch for a Nobel Peace Prize by negotiating a way forward with Iran (ironically, the day before his military escapade, Pakistan had proposed nominating President Trump for the Prize…); or the chance to mark his legacy by being the President who brought down the Mullahs in Iran.  It is clear that in the end, Trump plumped for the latter (perhaps, in part, because, since the EU was already in discussions with Tehran,  the President calculated that he would not get the sole credit for any peace negotiated with the regime).

And What Now?

The stakes have been massively raised.  The US has stated it is not interested in a protracted conflict and has warned Iran not to retaliate and to negotiate (a demand to which Iran might feel entitled to object, given they were negotiating with the US when Israel bombed them, and with the EU when the US bombed them…). 

US military bases across the Region are now on high alert. Airlines are closing routes to the Gulf.  Governments are repatriating citizens from the region.  Israeli strikes on Iran have intensified over the last 24 hours, with a focus on Tehran. PM Netanyahu may have commented yesterday that ‘the operation is nearly done’, but it is far from clear that there is an immediate end-game in sight.  As the Israelis themselves acknowledge, they have set back the Iranian nuclear programme by three years (at a maximum), but they have also realised that since Iranian nuclear knowledge acquired over the past two decades cannot be destroyed with military means, their objective must also now shift from degrading Iran’s nuclear programme and its military, to changing its regime (with Israeli airplanes this morning symbolically striking the regime’s notorious Evin prison). 

For its part, Iran has three options: do nothing (it will look weak to its own citizens); respond at a moment in the future when it has had time to set up bomb and booby-trap attacks and US readiness has reduced (possible, but that presupposes it retains an ability to respond and given the rates of attrition under continuous Israeli air assault, that is debatable); or respond strongly now – overnight Iran launched a barrage of missiles at the North and South of Israel in an attempt to overwhelm air defence systems. 

But, despite the Iranian leadership threatening an apocalyptic reaction, in reality, Iran’s options are limited.  Intelligence assessments indicated that the country began this conflict with about 3,000 missiles capable of hitting Israel.  It has fewer than 1500 left (although it probably retains a significant arsenal of short-to-medium range missiles).  Its list of regional allies grows thin - the puppet regime of Assad in Syria has fallen. Its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza have been hugely militarily degraded. And its militia allies in Iraq have given no indication of any willingness to put their heads above the parapet in its defence.  Only the Houthis in Yemen have indicated a readiness to respond (and their threat is patchy, at best). Iran does not want direct conflict with the US: it cannot hope to win in a battle against the combined military might of the US and Israel, so it is unlikely that Iran would choose to directly assault US forces in the region (for example, the US naval base in Bahrain).  That leaves cyber, guerilla or economic warfare as the most likely Iranian responses.

Yesterday, the Iranian Parliament voted to close the Straits of Hormuz but noted that the final decision rests with the Supreme Leader and his Military Council.  Closing the Straits is certainly an option open to Iran.  20% of the world’s hydrocarbons pass through them.  Closing them would spike oil prices, spook markets and almost certainly provoke a global recession (as the IMF commented this morning).  But it is not an option without downsides for Iran: shutting the Straits would cut off Iran’s hydrocarbon export route (in particular to China) and alienate its Gulf neighbours with whom it has worked out a less tense relationship over the past months.  And it is not clear how long Iran could keep the Straits closed if the US sent the Nimitz to force their re-opening. That the US considers that threat credible, though, is clear from the fact that it called on China to put pressure on Iran not to do it. 

The Rest of the World is Just a By-Stander Now…

A couple of other observations. The US action in Iran was a masterful military strike.  It is patently true when Trump and Hegseth say no other country could have pulled it off.  But it is equally true that the action has been wholly unilateral – Trump has demonstrated a willingness (and a capacity) to go it wholly alone. Both the astounding military power and the newfound willingness to act unilaterally is worrying for the rest of the world and raises domestic concerns around the US democracy.

Trump disregarded public opinion in the US (61% of the US public opposed military action in Iran); his own Party (die-hard MAGA supporters say they voted for President Trump as he was going to end foreign intervention and wars); Congress (the Democrats argue that a military operation without Congress approval is a violation of the Constitution); and national security protocols (normally, Democratic Party leaders should have been informed about any military action before it was undertaken).   But, like the Europeans who were wholly shut out and left in the dark about the US military action, the Democrats are ‘shouting in the void’.  With the Republicans in control of both Houses in the US and Trump in total control of his Cabinet and his Party, there is little prospect of organised opposition in the US and no sign of effective opposition amongst NATO allies (in fact, in my darker moments, I wonder whether NATO is not just ‘brain dead’ – as President Macron labelled it last year – but on life support – with President Trump’s hand poised over its plug…).

Gulf countries, equally un-consulted and uninformed, will feel they have been left in the dark (and any Iranian retaliation is likely to hit them especially hard).  It is, of course, the US’ prerogative to decide to inform, brief or pre-warn allies and friends, but the failure to do so affects political trust at a deep level.  Europe feels sidelined, more than ever convinced that the US has become an unreliable ally (at best). Russia will at once feel emboldened that the US has demonstrated the acceptability of unilateral action and concerned for the durability of its main ally in the Middle East.  China may draw the conclusion that, if it can demonstrate there is no direct threat to US interests), it can act with impunity in Taiwan and see an opportunity to grow its own influence in the Region.  Israel will feel it can continue its multi-directional war (which, with some justification, it feels it needs to do for its own survival).  As world attention has focused on Iran, the killing continues in Gaza (according to medical authorities in Gaza, 450 people have been shot at food distribution centres over the last 10 days), with the population feeling even more abandoned by the world. And the wider Arab world will ask – as Jordan’s Foreign Minister at the end of did last week – what is Israel’s end game here?  He offered peace with the Arab world in exchange for a Two-State solution.  And wondered aloud whether Israel does have a plan for peace, or is its plan ‘war, war and more war’?

China and Russia find themselves in the unexpected and unusual position of being the rational voices of peacemakers, called upon to intercede with a furious and deeply upset Iran.  Just at the time when international cooperation on a range of issues from climate change to migration has never been more necessary, unilateral American action, combined with the global rise of nationalistic populism threatens to undermine the ability of the world to act together for our collective good.

In the meantime, all eyes are on Iran and global markets await the outcome of that reaction nervously…