Trump’s Iran nightmare punishes US drivers at the pumps – and it could get much worse | World | News

So, after just over a week into the current US/Israel/Iran war, how do things stand? It’s often difficult to see through the fog of war and propaganda of all sides in the conflict, but there are one or two things we can be sure of, and then one or two things of which we cannot be quite so sure.

It’s quite clear that considerable damage has been visited on Iran. US-Israeli airstrikes have decapitated the government there, killing the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and most of his leaders and advisers.

The second and third tiers in his hierarchy are now being hunted down with much the same results. At the same time, the IRGC, the glue that holds the theocratic regime together, has also been hit hard, as have Iran’s ballistic missiles manufacturing facilities and its ability to launch them. Plus, Iran’s navy has been more or less obliterated.

What we cannot be sure of yet is whether Iran might, against the odds, be able to weather the storm. It replaces its leadership as quickly as it is taken out, and there is no real sign of a popular uprising against the regime, recent protests notwithstanding. Nor do we know whether armed groups like the Kurdish peshmerga and associated other militant groups might enter the fray.

To date, they have said they are not going to, despite US encouragement. The biggest known unknown of all is how long the US under the Trump administration will stay the course.

It may boast the most powerful armed forces on the planet, but even then, there is a time limit on how long the Americans can sustain their huge military presence in the region. At some point, they will have to pack up and go home.

Much depends on how the US president sees the endgame, and in this, he has been typically ambivalent. No sooner has he said that the war “is very complete, very much” than he changes tack and declares “we could call it a tremendous success right now. Or we could go further. And we’re going to go further”.

I don’t think even he knows what the final solution will look like. The prospect of the war dragging on for months or even years is not an attractive one politically, and he will likely wish it to all be done and dusted by the time of the US mid-term elections in November at the very latest.

But Trump cannot just decide the war is over unilaterally – Iran and Israel get a say in it too. Meanwhile, the ramifications of the conflict spread ever wider. The Gulf states look increasingly vulnerable to Iran’s aerial onslaught, and Dubai’s tourist trade is done for.

With oil and gas facilities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar already damaged and the passage of oil and gas tankers via the Strait of Hormuz reduced to a trickle, the potential for more global economic disruption is huge.

And in some American states, the price of petrol has increased from – Heaven forfend! – $3 to $3.48 a gallon, which will not go down well with middle-American voters.

The biggest fear is, perhaps, that Trump will lose patience and get bored with the whole affair and declare that the war is over and the US has won, leaving everybody else to clear up the mess left behind. America has previous form here. Just look at what happened in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

It’s often said that starting a war is much easier than ending one, and that having a planned exit strategy is a sine qua non before entering any military adventure.

It’s pretty hard, if not impossible, to have a coherent exit strategy if the strategic aim is unclear. What is it with regard to Iran? Regime change? Destruction of its nuclear capabilities? Destruction of its military? It has been all of these things so far with no definite agreement.

The warring parties are, therefore, currently caught in a political/military quagmire with no defined end state. I think they’ll be there for a while yet.

Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk