Thursday 10 May 2018

War with Iran?

Even the Ayatollahs with their blinkered view of the world cannot possiby want a war with the United States. Despite Trump's promise to reinstate American sanctions on Tehran after scrapping US participation in the 2015 nuclear deal, it seems inconceivable that the Iranian regime will leap back into nuclear weapons development. That would just antagonise Trump and drive the Brits and French and Germans back into the American fold. Thus, back to square one. President Hassan Rouhani has told the Iranian nuclear industry to stand ready to accelerate uranium enrichment. But that has to be rhetoric. Does he seriously want to invite Trump to bomb their precious Fordo plant where the enrichment goes on? Of course they don't. So Trump has put Rouhani on the spot. It's like a dare. Imagine Trump as Clint Eastwood facing the punk with the gun in Dirty Harry and inviting him to fire, not knowing whether the mighty Clint has used up all his bullets. Rouhani knows Trump has plenty of bullets but will he fire them? He won't know until the Tehran regime gives the order to build a nuclear weapon as fast as possible. Could Rouhani take that risk? Of course not. Rouhani has been manacled by Trump's decision to leave the nuclear deal. All he can do is plead with the Europeans, China and Russia to stay with the deal. But that's not going to work either because the US will put the squeeze on the lot of them. Meanwhile the Iranian economy is going to go down a long long slope to misery. In my view Iran has lost this one, and the Iranian people will be the ones to suffer which is not what this is all about. I'm sure most Iranians would love to live a decent life and be able to see their children well educated and well fed. They are caught in the middle between their fanatical anti-western, anti-Israel leaders and Revolutionary Guards and the blow-dried Trump. Right now the majority of Iranians probably hate Trump but as the economy deteriorates further they will surely start hating the Ayatollahs. Until that happens, and I predict it will, Iran and the US are going to be bitter enemies. It won't matter what the UK or France or Germany do to try and keep in with Tehran, Iran is going to be squeezed until the pips squeak as a former British Chancellor of the Exchequer once said. There cannot be a war between Iran and the US. Iran would lose and that would finally finish off the Ayatollahs. They know that. So instead there will be a war of sorts between Iran and Israel. But Iran will never win that one either. Trump has certainly transformed the international scene. Whether it will bring more peace or more hatred and violence we will have to see over the next 12 months.

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