The Progressives Simply Don't Understand

The World Has Changed. The Progressive Lens Hasn't.

On Tuesday BBC’s Jeremy Bowen, a hugely experienced foreign correspondent, gave an 11 minute exposition of his understanding of the current state of play and likely outcomes of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. His well voiced concern was that regime change doesn’t work without massive planning and support, as he has seen too many times in his career. Like the cypher that passes for our Prime Minister, he doesn’t believe in regime change by bombing (although he concedes that it might work if everyone got lucky). Bowen concludes that the world is in a bad place and that it was put there by President Trump and President Netanyahu, people with whom he vehemently disagrees about almost everything.

It was a polished and coherent segment, backed by evidence and full of compassion. Unfortunately it is, like our government’s policy and much of the establishment commentary, based on three flawed assumptions.

The first is the (perhaps unwitting) belief in the universal rules-based international order that will protect everything and everyone. That’s patently not borne out by the evidence, which of course included the Islamic Republic killing somewhere between 3,000 and 40,000 demonstrators in January.

The second is the implicit idea that regime change is possible if it’s preplanned properly. This is a classic piece of Marxist thinking: if the theory isn’t working, it’s because the people (or evil capitalist/Zionist western leaders) aren’t doing it properly. It overlooks the problem, demonstrated in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that an exile who is anointed by the West (or whoever installs him or her, invariably him in the Middle East) is immediately tarnished. Worse, having fled the country, they don’t have a network of allies; they’re set up for failure. The one exile who did succeed was Ayatollah Khomeini. Imprisoned, then exiled by the Shah to Turkey and then Iraq, whence he was expelled by Saddam Hussein, he ended up in Paris and then returned to lead Iran when the Shah fell. His long-standing animosity toward the Americans and British stood him in good stead with the population.

The third fallacy is that Israel and the United States chose war over diplomacy. Bowen and his ilk argue that while decades of negotiations over nuclear power and weaponry haven’t yielded much, Iran hasn’t got a bomb, so there is no threat to peace. This is the Obama/Biden line. It’s hugely popular with the progressives who dominate the mainstream media, much of blogland and the Labour Party. It’s also baloney.

The Islamic Republic continues to seek a nuclear bomb, a programme only held in check by the Israeli and American air forces. Given the Republic’s well evdidenced history of implacable hatred of Israel, such a weapon, if developed, would be an existential (and therefore intolerable) threat to Israel.

In parallel, the Iranian missile programme is (or was) working to develop the ability to swamp Israeli ballistic missile defences and (probably) to hit Europe and America. It’s supported in this endeavour by North Korea (which already has this capability), China, and probably others. This ability, if developed, would pose an intolerable threat to Europe (particularly the UK) and the United States. Diplomatic negotiations have not prevented its development. Doing nothing, which is effectively the achievement of 40 years of diplomacy, therefore would enable the emergence of a terrifying threat. Bowen didn’t mention this.

Diplomacy failed (again) when the Islamic Republic refused to even discuss its missile programme in the Oman talks. Israel and the United States faced a stark choice – allow the intolerable, existential threat to emerge or eliminate it. Presidents Netanyahu and Trump put the safety of their citizens front and centre. France and Germany get it; Bowen, Starmer and the progressive media don’t.

Instead they carp that there is no exit policy, that regime change won’t work and that attempts at regime change will fail. They obsess that the United States has not declared its war aims so that their progressive media can’t judge them. The President is not obliged to reveal what is undoubtedly highly classified information, least of all to a media circus that has a history of misrepresentation to undermine Trump’s presidency (as the BBC has demonstrated twice to date).

The Islamic Republic has not (yet) been destroyed, although its leadership and military capacity have been much diminished. It remains in power for now and is likely to until its opponents in Iran overthrow it. The Israeli and American mission is not regime change; it’s the elimination of a threat. If the theocracy sued for peace, America and Israel would listen. If it’s replaced by another gang of belligerent mullahs, they too will be considered an existential threat and treated accordingly.

That’s tough on the Iranian people, but arguably no more tough than life under the murderous mullahs. However, neither president is responsible to the Iranian people; they answer to their respective electorates in America and Israel. The rules-based international order hasn’t looked after Iranians either; the progressive argument is incoherent and self-contradictory. While they were blathering, the mullahs massacred protesters. Had the international order stopped the massacres and reined in the regime, Operation Enduring Freedom would have been unnecessary.

So far the operation has been hugely successful. There have been mistakes, most notably the missile that hit the school for reasons yet to be disclosed. It’s tragic, but these things happen in war. It was probably caused by incorrect intelligence, which happens. For example, British involvement in the invasion of Iraq was caused by incorrect intelligence (at best – pick your conspiracy rabbit hole.) Human error is part of life.

The Islamic Republic’s response was typical and predictable. For all the missiles and drones launched round the Gulf and beyond, remarkably little damage has been inflicted. Blocking the Straits of Hormuz was equally predictable. It’s also fixable, albeit protecting vessels transiting the Straits is a very demanding and high-risk task.
Merchaant ships, tankers and their escorts face multiple threats.

Conventional missiles, be they ballistic or cruise, are probably the easiest to deal with. Anti-air warships (equivalent to HMS Dragon) can shoot down both, although in the narrow straits the timelines for engaging land-launched cruise missiles are very short. There is also a risk of the Western warship running out of anti-aircraft missiles. The air offensive’s destruction of launchers and factories will mitigate that. Until Iranian stocks are reduced to manageable levels, no merchant ships are likely to be escorted through the Straits.

Destroying incoming surface attack drone/boat, thought to have been used in the recent attacks, is a little eaiser. Although detecting small, fast-moving and largely non-metallic boats is harder than detecting warships, it’s not impossible. Destroying them once detected with guns or missiles is relatively straightforward, provided sufficient warships are on hand.

Underwater drones are detectable by sonar, which many warships (and all submarines) have. Destroying them is harder and again much complicated by the narrowness of the Strait. There is little open-source information on how many underwater drones the Islamic Republic possesses. It also has a few large diesel-electric submarines and about 20 Ghadir class diesel-electric mini-submarines. Both fire torpedoes with a 200–400 kg warhead, as effective in sinking ships today as they were in World War Two. Diesel-electric submarines are very hard to detect when running on their batteries, but they must surface – or at least elevate a snorkel air intake – and run on diesel to recharge the batteries. When doing that they are noisy and consequently much easier to detect and destroy.

Lastly, the Iranians have mines, although their capacity to lay them is much diminished. The regime is thought to have about 2,000 floating and drifting contact mines and claims to have laid at least ten of them. Contact mines are the ones that appear in the World War Two films; they’re spheres full of explosives with protruding studs – if a ship hits the stud, the mine detonates – almost certainly sinking the ship. More sophisticated mines triggered by magnetism or noise also exist, and Iran might have some.

Mine hunting is another complex naval task, and the British are quite good at it. The Royal Navy used to have a mine hunter in the Gulf, HMS Middleton. Almost incredibly (never underestimate the ineptitude of the MOD), it departed there in January and is now tied up in Portsmouth awaiting refurbishment, itself pending the finalisation of the much-delayed Defence Investment Plan.

From the outset of Roaring Lion / Everlasting Fury, it has been clear that the Israelis and their partners have excellent intelligence on Iran’s military capacity, including its navy. Despite the assertions of Bowen and the progressives, President Trump was well aware of the likelihood of the Straits being closed and the complexity of reopening them. He even said that he considered the operation was worth a bit of short-term pain in the oil price. Given the alternative was the continued existence of an increasingly capable and vengeful Islamic Republic, he’s probably correct.

Bowen and the progressives aren’t party to the intelligence that Israel and the United States have. (The UK probably isn’t either; recognising the Palestinian state has consequences.) That’s no surprise; their dogmatic belief in the international world order and the status quo blinds them to the realities. President Trump’s style is certainly different, but it’s far from deranged.

His background in deal-making means that he realises that counterparties in negotiations have separate agendas and different priorities. Predicting what they will do in extremis is difficult. What is vital is to keep sight of your aims and prepare for surprises. If possible, surprise your opponent too. President Trump understands what any decent military commander can tell him – “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” He’s comfortable in that chaotic space; progressives like Bowen and Starmer aren’t.

The world has moved on, but they haven’t. It’s time for them to catch up or shut up.

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