The consequences of Trump’s Iran deal

For almost half a century, the Iranian regime has not hidden its commitment to violent confrontation with the West. Its fanatical devotion to the destruction of Israel has made peace in the Middle East impossible. It has sponsored a network of terrorist proxies including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, and plotted multiple assassinations and kidnappings on Western soil. At home, it massacred tens of thousands of its own citizens this year alone for daring to call for freedom.
Nobody could simply shrug their shoulders at the  prospect of such a regime securing nuclear weapons. Diplomatic efforts to constrain Tehran’s wider malign ambitions had not worked, either.  

There was therefore every justification for the United States and Israel to launch their military campaign against the Iranian regime earlier this year. The first days of the war brought some stunning successes. Within a matter of hours, Ayatollah Khamenei was killed, and the regime’s navy and airforce was largely destroyed.

Events since then have proved rather less straightforward. The campaign of bombing is believed to have destroyed swathes of Iran’s military infrastructure, but did not bring about the regime change that Donald Trump and many others had hoped for. Energy prices rose after Iran held the world to ransom by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital supply line from the Gulf. Whether Iran’s nuclear programme has been destroyed or substantially set back remains unclear.
The deal signed by Mr Trump this week brings the conflict to an end for now and is intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding kicks many cans down the road, and poses more questions than it answers.

Iran has stated that it will not produce nuclear weapons, but that has always been Tehran’s official position, and it would be foolish to take Iran at its word. Can a comprehensive nuclear agreement be signed within 60 days, when the much-maligned Iran nuclear deal of 2015 took 20 months to negotiate? Where does this ceasefire leave Israel, which appears forced to spare Hezbollah, in effect accepting an Iranian-proxy terror group on its northern border? And what of Iran’s remaining ballistic missile stocks?

The great fear is that, despite the destruction of much of its military, the deal confirms Iran as being in a stronger position now than before the conflict began.

While the Americans and Israelis have shown that the Iranian leadership can be hit hard whenever they so choose, Iran has demonstrated something, too: that it can survive the assassination of its leaders and deploy a devastating economic weapon by closing the Strait of Hormuz that will force the West to come to terms. Who says they will not try doing the same again? The end of the US blockade on Iranian ports and the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil will meanwhile allow Tehran to export its most valuable commodity. The Gulf States’ dependence on Hormuz can be reduced by finding alternative routes, but that will take time.

There may be some surprising winners from the conflict. Was it a coincidence that Ukraine chose today to strike an oil refinery on the outskirts of Moscow, in a remarkable display of its drone capabilities? Mr Trump is known to love a winner, so perhaps Kyiv’s successes will work to the Ukrainians’ favour if he turns his attention back to ending Putin’s war. Kyiv certainly seems to have made new friends in the Gulf, interested in its military expertise.

But Britain must surely be seen as one of the losers. The war revealed the gaps in the country’s military capabilities especially the Royal Navy, which belatedly deployed just one ship to the Eastern Mediterranean. The serious breach with Mr Trump over using British bases to strike Iran is unlikely to be forgotten in Washington. The conflict also showed the lunacy of Ed Miliband’s net zero obsession, with even fears of shortages not enough to prompt him into backing the North Sea.

Today, Dan Jarvis, the new Defence Secretary, was supposed to provide the UK’s fully-costed plan to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035 to the rest of Nato. He came armed only with rhetoric. It was a striking illustration of how unserious and irrelevant Britain is becoming.

[Source: (Comment) - Daily Telegraph]