ANDREW NEIL: Iran’s allies in Moscow and Beijing are cock-a-hoop. And I hear European and Gulf leaders are privately fuming at Trump’s folly
‘We’ve won,’ President Trump declared earlier this week.
As he spoke Iranian missiles and drones continued to rain down on America’s beleaguered allies in the Gulf, the Tyrants of Tehran tightened their already iron grip on domestic dissent, oil settled at around $100 a barrel (versus $60 before America and Israel started bombing Iran) and cargo ships trying to make it through the Strait of Hormuz were destroyed, confirming the Iranian regime has its boot pressed hard on the global economy’s throat.
If this is what the President considers victory to be, then you wonder what he thinks defeat would look like. Yes, the regime has taken a terrible pounding. It is battered and bruised.
How could it be otherwise, with the US and Israel claiming to have hit 15,000 targets? Its leadership has been decapitated, its infrastructure of repression degraded, its missile stocks depleted, its navy sunk, its nuclear-bomb ambitions set back yet again. But here’s the rub: It’s still standing, still functioning, still retaliating, still in control of the streets as well as the Strait.
America claims the new Supreme Leader (son of the old one, killed in the first Israeli bombing raid) is wounded, perhaps seriously. But still well enough to demand America meet some tough pre-conditions before Iran would agree to a ceasefire. It’s almost as if Tehran is taunting Trump.
The regime is gambling that if it can raise the cost of oil and gas high enough for long enough – with all that would entail in the higher prices and lost jobs for the world’s major economies – then Trump will soon declare victory (as he always does, whatever the facts) and go home.
If this is what the President considers victory to be, then you wonder what he thinks defeat would look like, writes Andrew Neil
An oil tanker burns after being hit by an Iranian strike at Khor al-Zubair port near Basra, Iraq
It thinks it can endure hardship more easily than Trump can suffer the economic and political pain of soaring energy prices in a crucial election year.
Of course Tehran is in no position to dictate terms to America. But Washington is not exactly awash with decent options either. It can unleash attacks on another 15,000 targets. But would that really be a game-changer? There comes a point when bombardment is subject to the law of diminishing returns. We may already be there.
Washington hawks are now suggesting invading Kharg Island, from which most Iranian oil exports leave, to cut off the revenues that keep the regime going; and occupying the Iranian coastline to the north of the Strait of Hormuz as a necessary first step to reopening the choke point.
Both moves would be classic mission creep, casebook escalations involving boots on the ground. It would take weeks if not months to assemble the necessary forces. It would run the risk of yet another ‘forever war’, the prospect of which so repels Trump’s Maga base. I doubt the President will sign off on either.
But what does he do instead? It is dawning on those around him that military success does not necessarily translate into political success. That destroying an enemy’s ability to wage war does not guarantee better government.
The White House, of course, is populated by slow learners – for this was already the lesson of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And now of Iran.
However ground down the government in Tehran, the prospect of regime change is as far away as ever. Israeli officials privately admit that Iran’s ruling elite – a combination of medieval mullahs and Revolutionary Guard thugs – is unlikely to be toppled any time soon, that the chances of a popular uprising are slight.
But Washington is also starting to realise that an end to hostilities which leaves the current regime in situ is pretty much the worst of all possible outcomes. For a start it means that the Islamic Republic, however battered, would have seen off the Great Satan. It would have survived to threaten its Gulf neighbours again – America’s allies – in the years to come, whenever the mood took it.
A foreign tanker carrying Iraqi fuel oil was damaged, following unidentified attacks that targeted two foreign tankers, according to Iraqi port officials, near Basra
The White House, of course, is populated by slow learners – for this was already the lesson of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. And now of Iran
If you really want to understand how this war is going just look at the state of the respective allies of America and Iran. The Gulf States – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – are in despair. Their chances of rebuilding their reputation for safety and security while the regime in Tehran remains intact are close to zero. Already some Gulf leaders are mulling over how to make their peace with Tehran.
European leaders are no less distraught. A war with no real purpose or decent outcome risks throwing their already stagnant economies into recession yet again, fanning social unrest, fuelling extremists on the Left and Right. One source told me that European and Gulf leaders now exchange phone calls ‘privately fuming’ at what Trump has done.
Some European countries, I hear, are trying ‘to do an India’ and negotiate direct with Iran to get some tankers out the Gulf.
Britain, of course, has been conspicuous collateral damage – exposed as a paper tiger, struggling to deploy even one warship to defend our bases in Cyprus.
In stark contrast, Iran’s allies are cockahoop. Iranian oil is still making it through the Strait of Hormuz to China, which is suspected of covertly helping Iran’s ballistic missile programme.
Beijing is delighted that America’s attention is elsewhere while it continues to put the squeeze on Taiwan. But Russia is the biggest winner of all. Just as its treasury coffers were running dry and even its sovereign wealth fund was running out of liquid assets to pay for the war in Ukraine, the spike in oil and gas prices has been a huge, unexpected boon. It’s raking in as much as $150million a day in extra tax revenues from its oil sales – a cumulative windfall of up to £2billion since the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with much more to come should energy prices remain elevated.
No wonder Russia is providing Iran with intelligence, including satellite imagery and drone targeting, to help Tehran strike the US and its allies in the region.
Bizarrely, even Trump is helping out: In an attempt to stop oil prices soaring out of control the US Treasury is easing sanctions to allow the market to buy Russian oil cargoes already at sea. No doubt President Putin is grateful to his old pal in the White House.
China and India are the main beneficiaries. Both have upped their imports of Russian oil by over 20 per cent a week since the attacks on Iran began, replenishing Kremlin coffers in the process.
India is also dealing directly with Iran: It is negotiating with Tehran to allow at least 23 tankers loaded with oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) through the Strait of Hormuz with the first passages expected this weekend.
Only America’s allies, it seems, are the losers in Trump’s war against Iran. So much so that European governments are now thinking of delaying their upcoming ban on Russian LNG because gas from Qatar can’t get out of the Gulf. Bang would go years of effort to isolate Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. Another win for Putin.
In truth, very little lasting good has come out of the US-Israeli onslaught on Iran so far. Israel has made some short-term gain from the further hobbling of a regime which wants to wipe it out. But for America there is as yet no long-term advantage.
When Trump removed Venezuela’s dictator at the start of the year and put the squeeze on the communist commissars of Cuba, there was a hope that 2026 would be the year in which the world’s autocrats would be on the back foot for the first time this century. Iran was to be the biggest prize of all.
But Trump went to war without a clear end game in sight and with the conceit – always likely to be mistaken – that you could remove an entrenched regime from 35,000 feet. Of course with Trump you can never rule out the unexpected – that he might yet pull some enormous rabbit out of the hat. But for the moment it is the autocrats who are celebrating.
Once again we face the risk that the 21st century will be their time – that they are the future while the democracies are in retreat. If that is indeed the sad, geopolitical outcome of Trump’s Iranian misadventure then he will have made a miscalculation of historic proportions from which his reputation, such as it is, will never recover.
