CALAMITY DON'S WAR

The wearying hyperbole about the war in Iran goes on. Day after day US President Donald Trump says that Iran's capabilities have been 'decimated' or 'obliterated' (he uses the words as synonyms, lest anyone wishes to assert the older sense of decimate as eliminating one-tenth). On 9 March, he crowed that the war was 'very complete, pretty much'. Ten days later he threatened to 'massively blow up' Iran's largest gas field. And so on.

The contradictions are obvious: if everything was already obliterated yesterday, how can the US obliterate it again today? If the war was 'very complete' on 9 March, why is it continuing now? But I do not wish to harp on about the Iran war. Allow me one last commentary, after which I will try to say nothing about it for a few weeks as there are many other issues to write about. I expect the war will last for months anyway, with US ground troops eventually deployed. For now, I will simply reiterate what I think events in the Middle East are doing for America's adversaries and for America's alliances.

'Truth is the first casualty of war'

Last summer, Trump claimed to have obliterated Iran's nuclear programme. The most relevant detail, to my mind, was that the US and Iran continued the negotiations on curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions right up till the launch of the latest war on 28 February. Those negotiations implied that last year's strikes had anything but 'obliterated' Iran's programme: otherwise, what were they negotiating about?

America's war propaganda – of course, Iran has its own propaganda machine, though that is not my focus here – aims to boost morale and public support for a war Trump chose to begin. It is all very obvious: minimise the enemy's successes, exaggerate your own. From the first hours of the war the US downplayed its casualties from Iranian strikes, while day after day talking up the damage it was inflicting on the enemy. Trump keeps on claiming that Iran's navy and air force are 'gone'. The analyst looks at the numbers and sighs: when Trump boasted that the US had taken out 24 ships in the first three days, the unspoken part was that Iran still had a couple of hundred vessels in its fleet.

In fairness, Iran had very few warships and most of its fleet comprised smaller patrol boats and amphibious assault craft. US missiles did destroy several frigates and corvettes, but it was clear that Trump exaggerated. As of this writing, about 60 Iranian vessels have been taken out of service, though a military journalist notes that Iran 'still possesses a limited submarine force and coastal missile launchers and small irregular craft' – albeit in a 'tattered and disorganised' state.

America's war communications strategy also had to deal with the debacle of a missile strike on a girls' school at the beginning of the war. Trump initially claimed an Iranian missile hit the school, only for journalists to point out that video footage showed a US Tomahawk missile. Trump then claimed that he believed Iran fired the missile, despite Iran not having any Tomahawks. The Pentagon's preliminary investigation, blaming 'outdated' targetting data, acknowledged the US was likely responsible. What else could it conclude (if only preliminarily)?

'What a great honour it is to be killing Iranians,' says Trump

Day after day, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promises the biggest and hardest strikes yet on Iran. Again, it is strange, to say the least, after claiming Iran's capabilities were 'obliterated' in the first day. He has resorted to despicable language: why does no one call him out for calling Iran's leaders 'rats'? Or Trump saying they are 'deranged scumbags'? I know I am not alone in having misgivings about the undisguised relish with which Hegseth and Trump pledge to 'bomb the hell' out of Iran unless it surrenders.

Channelling his inner school bully, Hegseth said last week: 'This was never meant to be a fair fight, we are punching them while they are down, as it should be.' Except that isn't exactly right, is it? First of all, it sounds like bragging about committing war crimes. I have little sympathy for the brutal Iranian regime, yet nor do I condone hitting someone when they are down. Except, second point, I am not sure they are down either.

"If you know neither the enemy not yourself, you will succumb in every battle" -- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Trump called on the Iranian police and military to lay down their weapons. It does not appear that they are doing so, despite the US claiming Iranians 'at all levels of the regime' are defecting. In the absence of any evidence in the public domain, that sounds like propaganda too. Iran is continuing to strike targets across the Middle East and it is keeping the Strait of Hormuz de facto closed. The Strait's closure seems to have caught Trump by surprise. It should not have. What is surprising is that Iran didn't choke it last year.

But the American president is renowned for cutting back on briefings and reading little; he always thinks he knows best. He is consequently caught unawares by foreseeable developments. No serious analyst thought the Iranian regime would collapse easily and, whilst I cannot be sure, I do not think the regime is collapsing. The longer the war goes on, the less helpful the initial US intelligence assessments and knowledge base on its enemy becomes; the US will know less and less about the people directing the Iranian war strategy as new commanders replace those killed.

The US, meanwhile, is spending upwards of $1bn per day [1]. It expended an estimated 11,000 munitions in the first sixteen days of the war, according to the Economist, depleting its stockpiles of some missiles that are not quickly replenished. The US has redeployed air defence systems from the Asia-Pacific to the Middle East. The Chinese must be lapping it up. As to the Russians, they stand to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars extra each week in oil sales as a result of the US easing its sanctions regime.

Not a NATO matter

As to America's allies, they have little time for Trump's ugly rancour. Having repeatedly claimed to have won the war already, he then began to demand others' assistance. From the perspective of a European NATO member: one moment, Trump belittled Britain and said its help is not needed; the next he is imploring Britain and others to send help to open the Strait of Hormuz, calling NATO allies 'cowards' for not rushing to his side. Is it all that surprising they are reluctant to get involved in a war the US president began without consulting them? A war that looks ill-considered despite the undeniable success of the first waves of strikes.

'We don't need or desire NATO's help'

Trump's ambivalence about NATO is hardly news. He continues to talk of it as something the US is not part of. On 16 March, speaking on the steps of Air Force One, he said: 'We're always there for NATO, we're helping them with Ukraine... It doesn't affect us but we've helped them... We're asking them for help with a small endeavour; it's small because Iran has very little firepower left.' As is his style, he doubled down on his complaint over the next couple of days. 'I told you they wouldn't be there for us,' he whined.

Yet whether one agrees with the war or not, whether one thinks it is in European allies' interest to get involved or not, it is not a situation that obliges America's NATO allies to do anything. The North Atlantic Treaty is about defence and security in Europe and North America. The clue is in the name: it applies to the North Atlantic. Its famous collective defence clause, Article 5, mandates signatories to respond should an ally come under attack. It reads: 'The Parties agree that an attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all...' (italics added). Article 6 provides some clarification about the territories covered.

The basic point is intuitive: unless you think Iran is part of Europe rather than Asia, and unless you think it attacked the US first, there is no obligation for NATO members to do anything to help America. NATO is not about supporting a US war in the Middle East. Just as it was not a NATO matter when the Argentinian ruling junta seized the Falkland Islands from Britain in 1982. It is true that NATO has dabbled with 'out-of-area' operations in the post-cold war era, but this is not a treaty commitment. Allies are not America's lackeys.

This is Trump's war. He chose it. Few want to join a war when the US has failed to set out clear reasons for it. Few believe Iran was about to attack the US, while the nuclear weapons claims are a mess. Intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard told a Congressional hearing this week that Iran had abandoned its nuclear programme last year. At least she would have told the hearing that, had she read aloud her prepared statement in full; instead, she conveniently 'skipped' the relevant paragraph because she was worried the hearing was running over its allotted time. That is the excuse she gave: no joke!

Not so long ago, Trump formed his Board of Peace. With him already threatening to use force against Cuba, let us hope he soon grows bored of war.

20 March

Footnote:

[1] A conservative estimate. The Foreign Policy Research Institute says the cost of replacing US munitions used in the first four days of strikes is $10-$16bn. The cost for subsequent days will be lower.