Is Trump preparing for a big escalation in the war with Iran?

We have now had more than ten days of US raids on Iranian military targets, aimed at degrading the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' ability to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz. But it's still not having the affect Trump is looking for which is a full backdown by Tehran and a return to negotiations. As a consequence, I think there is now a strong chance that Trump will up the ante and focus far more on the IRGC itself. This might even involve a temporary landing of troops in Iran to destroy an IRGC stronghold. If this happens, it will be seen as the biggest escalation of the war and a dangerous one because of the rik of casualties on the American side. But something has to happen. The US can't just launch raids every night on the same old targets - air defence systems, communications sites, maritime units, drone storage sites etc for months and months. A new phase must surely be coming, unless Tehran suddenly caves in and begs to go back to Switzerland for talks. There has been no begging so far, whatever Trump claims. So, my prediction is, watch out, Iran. Something bigger is about to happen that could send the IRGC reeling.

Trump warns he will hit bridges and power plants in Iran for every ship targeted in the Gulf

Donald Trump has vowed in the past to destroy Iranian civilisation. No one believed he really meant it. Now, however, he has told Iran via his Truth Social platform that every time the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fires at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz he will order his military to bomb a bridge or a power plant. This time I think he means it. A lot of commentators have pointed out that deliberately targeting a civilian infrastructure site is a breach of the Geneva Convention. But then, surely, so is deliberately targeting a commercial ship trying to go about its business in an international waterway. So, unlawful or not under international law, the message from Trump might, just might, make Tehran think again about hitting ships. It probably won't because the IRGC which runs the country can't bear the thought of giving into Trump. So, more ships will be hit by missiles and drones. This means that in the next week or so, Iran is going to lose a handful of bridges and power plants. This is brinkmanship at its worst. One can only say, thank God Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon because by now we would be in a nuclear stand-off.

War with Iran is getting bigger and bigger

So much for the much-trumpeted 60-day ceasefire. We had a few days of non-violence and then Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked two ships in the Gulf and now every day it's war. If it goes on much longer both sides will run out of missiles and drones and bombs. The war is also expanding, with the Houthis in Yemen, always ready for a scrap, now intending to carry out their own blockade of Saudi Arabia. The US will have to deal with it which means taking warships and fighter aircraft away from the war with Iran. What must Israel be thinking right now? Netanyahu probably wants to get involved again, even though the Israeli military are still busy with Gaza and Hezbollah.The new British prime minister Andy Burnham is already under pressure from Trump to allow UK bases to be used for bombing Iran. Will Burnham reverse Keir Starmer's decision to allow only defensive strikes to go ahead from the bases? It seems unlikely unless Burnham is desperate to curry favour with Trump. So, for the moment, Europe is staying out of the war but might this change? Again, I think it's unlikely. Europe wants a negotiated end to the war and will continue to refuse to go to Trump's aid. But diplomacy for now is out of the window.When is the war ever going to stop?

Iran's deep-bunkered weapons sites are frustrating Trump

American bombs, cruise missiles and latest state of the art drones have laid waste to Iranian bridges, coastal defences, control towers and other military installations in the past week. But even as President Trump threatens to escalate the war and hit his enemy ever harder, Iran has so far proved capable of retaliating with its own strikes. Iran is relying on its survival as a military power, capable of confronting the US, on a network of underground “missile cities” and a developing nuclear site buried so deep in a mountain no American bomb can reach it. These deep, bunkered facilities stand between victory for Trump and a long drawn-out war which no one wins. In one of several interviews last week, the president declared the US would soon be targeting the nuclear complex known as “Pickaxe Mountain”, which is an affront to his demand that Iran should never pursue a nuclear weapon. Trump said the site buried under a granite mountain would receive “a nice big fat shot right in the front door”. The underground site, formally known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La (Kolang meaning pickaxe) is not yet operational but is located immediately southwest of Natanz, one of three nuclear sites hit by the US and Israel in Operation Midnight Hammer in June last year. So far, Pickaxe Mountain has not been targeted, even though US intelligence believes it’s being built to produce gas centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapons-grade level and for the enriching process itself. It has two pairs of extensively hardened entrances, east and west, and the caverns below where nuclear production work could be carried out are estimated to be more than 100 metres deep (about 330ft). Trump’s reference to hitting the site “in the front door” suggests any attack would aim to seal off the entrances rather than try to penetrate deep enough to demolish the underground caverns. The US air force has only one conventional bomb type capable of reaching deeply-buried facilities. But the 30,000lb GBU-57 massive ordnance penetrator (MOP), dropped by B-2 stealth bombers on Natanz and the two other nuclear sites at Fordow and Isfahan last year, can penetrate “only” an estimated 200ft underground. “An attack on Pickaxe Mountain could target the above-ground incoming power supply lines, the location of ventilation shafts [which is what the B-2s targeted in the attacks on the three other sites in June last year] and the open tunnel entrances,” the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security predicted. “We’re watching Pickaxe Mountain very closely,” Trump said in the interview with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative talk show host on Salem Radio. “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.” However, even with its now limited stock of MOPs - 14 out of an existing stock of around 20 were used up in Operation Midnight Hammer – the US military cannot guarantee putting Pickaxe Mountain out of action for very long. The same challenge has been found with Iran’s deeply-buried missile cities, dozens of underground sites located around the country where medium-range and short-range ballistic missiles and launchers are housed. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace force stores the missiles in multi-level tunnel systems, many of them also buried in mountains. Iran last week released a video showing two IRGC commanders (now both dead), touring the tunnels in one of the underground cities, seen lined with missiles and launchers. Previous footage on state media has shown extensive tunnels where stockpiles of weapons are stored. During more than a week of strikes, US Central Command has said its attacks would “degrade” Iran’s missile and drone capabilities. But the large-scale retaliatory attacks launched by Iran against Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East, have demonstrated that the IRGC’s longstanding plans for war have paid off.

The war in Iran is being ramped up

The death of two US servicemen, killed in Jordan by an Iranian strike has lit the touch paper. Now more and more attacks by the US military are seemingly being aimed at Iran's civilian infrastructure. This is going to get very ugly for the Iranians. But will the regime in Tehran start thinking again about whether to call a halt to retaliatory strikes and hits on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and go back to peace negotiations? I fear this is all too late now. I believe it won't be long before we hear once again of US plans to take or destroy Kharg Island which is full of Iranian oil terminals and pipelines, just like we did weeks ago, except that Trump never went ahead with it. I think Trump believes, rightly so, that the Iranian regime can never be trusted and that, therefore, it needs to be taught a lesson it will never safely emerge from. This next week is going to see a thunderous response from the US. Donald Trump has now decided to go back to full-scale war with everything being seen as a legitimate target. Before this devastation gets underway, Tehran will need to think hard about the future of its country and the poor population which is in the midst of this nightmare.

This is a war with no red lines

Officials keep still using the phrase "red lines" when talking of the war between the US and Iran, as if both sides have an agreed limit to the direction and scale of the attacks with missiles, bombs and drones. In fact there are no red lines anymore, other than the nuclear one of course (one hopes). Iran has been attacking civilian targets in the Gulf since the war began and now the US has taken the gloves off and is attacking bridges, roads, power stations and other energy sites. Donald Trump vowed that next week, unless Iran came to the negotiating table, he would order the military to carry out huge attacks on Iran's infrastructure. That seems to have started already. So, forget the red lines jargon. All bets are off. The US will go for Iran's energy infrastructure, something which Trump has been promising to do for weeks. If it's on a large scale, then Iran's economy is going to go bust very quickly. It's amazing to remember that in the Memorandum of Understanding or Misunderstanding as one columnist in the US put it, Iran was promised a huge investment fund of $300 billion as part of the agreement to help reconstruct the country. Why on earth didn't Iran take that and get on with rebuilding the damaged country? Instead, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched attacks on ships in the Gulf because it didn't want ships to use the southern route close to Oman - out of their control. So so stupid and shortsighted. That investment money could have been used to bring the smile back to the Iranian people. But the IRGC doesn't care about the ordinary people, and now Iranians are getting scared because roads they need to connect communities are being bombed. When will the IRGC ever learn? PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER IN PAPERBACK. ROWANVALE bOOKS, wATERSTONES, AMAZON.

Is a negotiated settlement with Iran now off the table?

There really doesn't seem any point in renewing the "peace" negotiations between the US and Iran. Both sides are now rigidly in war mode. This is a disaster for the Gulf, for the Middle East, for the world. Donald Trump went to war and hoped for a quick finish. But failed. The "new" regime in Tehran, having lost its supreme leader through assassination, has never really been interested in doing business with the US but just wants revenge, however long it takes. Right now, the generals and mullahs want revenge by hanging onto the Strait of Hormuz, but they probably want personal revenge as well. This is a dangerous period. One hears very little these days of back channel attempts by Pakistan, Qatar and others to get the two sides together. So for the time being, probably the next two or three months, it's going to be war, war, war and no serious negotiations. Again, this is a disaster for everyone. It does demonstrate, does it not, that the United Nations is an ineffective organisation with no role to play at all. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, A VERY EXCITING PAPERBACK PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS.