Tit-for-tat energy war between the US and Iran is a disaster in the making

Four weeks into the war started by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Tehran regime, propped up by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Cporps, is showing no sign of backing down or lessening the tension, let alone seeking a peace deal. In fact the war is now reaching a truly dangerous stage, with Trump warning he will obliterate Iran's energy infrastructure, and Tehran saying it will respond in kind by showering the Gulf states' energy plants with ballistic missiles. And what, I might ask, is the hell the point of doing that? It will lead to an enormous breach in the world economy, poverty for the Iranian people and a wider war thoughout the Middle East. For God's sake, someone step forward and get some sense into the White House and Tehran and stop this warmongering. If Iran tries again to hit Israel's nuclear research site at Dimona, then Israel is going to respond with an almighty blast at Iran. Israel has around 80 nuclear warheads. If Netanyahu feels Israel's very existence is at stake, he could reach for the weapon of last resort. I only mention this because the rhetoric is now getting hyper-bellicose. Everyone needs to calm down. Who is actually working to get this war to stop? PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS

How much longer can Iran hold on?

Most media reports suggest the US/Israel war against Iran is heading towards a mighty Middle Eastern conflict, dragging in many of America's allies, and that the regime in Tehran is putting up such a fierce fight, it could go on for months and lead to a collapse of the world economy. But that doesn't take into account the huge damage being done to Iran from 24-hour bombing. A huge proportion of the Iranian military infrastructure has been smashed, the leadership dares not show its face for fear of facing Israeli assassins, the cost of living has shot up, the country is effectively facing ruin. How long can this go on before the people of Iran cry out: enough, enough! Ok, it's too dangerous for them to come out into the streets and rebel against the regime. But there will have to come a time when someone sensible -is there anyone? - in Iran will make the call to Trump and say: "Stop destroying our country, we are ready to talk." So far, the contacts have led to nothing but that's because the yearning for revenge, particularly for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the late supreme leader, is so overwhelming there is little motivation for seeking a deal. But it's in no one's interest for Iran to be destroyed. The 90 million people deserve a decent future but it's not going to happen while the radical clerics are in charge. I feel sorry for the ordinary Iranian families who just want a peaceful life. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Will Trump seize Iran's Kharg Island?

Iran’s most strategically vital oil facility, now on President Trump’s hitlist, is known to Iranians as the “Forbidden Island”. Located about 15.5 miles off the coast of Iran in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg Island, a tiny coral outcrop, is heaving with oil storage tanks, loading terminals and pipelines. It represents Iran’s lifeblood and is protected by thousands of troops from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Access to Kharg is heavily restricted which is why it has acquired the sobriquet ,“Forbidden Island”. Millions of barrels of crude oil flow from Iran’s principle oil fields through pipelines to Kharg Island every day. The island was selected because it’s located in deep water, suitable for the arrival and departure of oil tankers. Iran supplies more than 4.5 per cent of global oil. Kharg Island currently has an estimated 18 million barrels of crude stored in tanks. After a mass US bombing raid last week on Karg Island which, according to Trump, “totally obliterated” everything military, from air defences to drone-launching sites, the path has been laid for an amphibious landing by thousands of American Marines. currently en route from the Philippine Sea. Such an operation, aimed at seizing control of the island through which around 90 per cent of Iran’s crude oil passes to its global customers, would be Trump’s most daring and potentially most risky offensive mission against the Tehran regime since the war began on February 28. The insertion of Marines – the first boots on the ground in Operation Epic Fury – would expand and extend the confrontation with Tehran. It would no longer be an air war lasting “four or five weeks”. Territorial occupation, even if limited in time, could provoke retaliation on a different scale. All of these factors are being weighed up by the Pentagon and the White House, as the 2,500 troops of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) on board the big-deck amphibious assault ship, USS Tripoli and two other vessels, make their way to the Middle East. They are due to arrive next week. A successful seizure of Kharg Island would provide Trump with the ultimate leverage to persuade Tehran to capitulate, albeit that so far the regime has shown no sign of giving in to the president’s demands. The air and Tomahawk-missile attacks on Kharg Island carefully avoided any targeting of the oil terminals and other vital infrastructure The threat to destroy this crucial sector of Iran’s oil empire is still one of the options on Trump’s list. But to do so would cause a spiralling of global oil prices. There is another factor. China is Iran’s largest oil customer, and Trump is still due to meet with President Xi Zinping in Beijing later this month. The destruction of Kharg Island’s oil terminals would scupper not only the planned visit but also relations between Beijing and Washington. So, the second option, an amphibious landing and occupation by Marines would mean the US could hold the island hostage in return for Tehran agreeing to stop blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and allow 20 per cent of the world’s oil to pass through the chokepoint safely. It would be a huge gamble. Kharg Island may be only five miles long by about three miles wide. But it could require more than 2,500 US Marines to seize and hold it. Double that number would make more military sense, although an MEU is self-sufficient and comes with tanks, artillery, armoured vehicles, helicopters and its own F-35B vertical take-off fighter jets. What has not been revealed is how many of the IRGC residents of Kharg Island were killed in last week’s bombing raids and how well they may have been reinforced from the mainland. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Are Trump and Netanyahu doing this war together or...?

Israel is basically helping itself to targets in Iran and sometimnes one wonders whether Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are on the same page. Trump said in the first week that all the people he had in mind for possibly taking over from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed in the huge Israeli airstrike on Day One which finished off the then supreme leader and many others. Israel has continued to target and kill other top Iranian regime leaders including Ali Larijani, the head of Iran's national security council, and today the intelligence minister. Were either of those on Trump's list of possible leaders he could do business with? Now Israel has bombed one of the largest natural gas fields in Iran. Yet Trump deliberately didn't order US bombers to target the oil terminals on Kharg Island when all the military facilities on the island were hit. Presumably Trump had his reasons - the price of oil - for leaving the terminals and oil storage sites undamaged. So did he know Netanyahu was going to hit the gas field? Maybe, Trump has told the Israeli prime minister he can bomb what he likes but it seems to be a bit of coordination and shared objectives might be a good move.

Trump disillusioned by America's allies

It has been quite a shock for Donald Trump. Normally when he puts out a call from the Oval Office, people come running. Look what happened when Joe Biden rang to create a coalition to help Ukraine fight Russia. Everyone, bar none, agreed to rally round. Trump asks allies for help in tackling Iran and the response has been tepid to say the least. First, Keir Starmer, and then the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanche, said no to US bombers flying off to Iran from UK and Spanish bases, and now none of the Nato allies seem to be responding to Trump's call to send warships to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz under fire from Iran. Starmer said he wasn't willing. German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz said it wasn't a job for Nato. No one wanted to get involved in what is seen as Trump's war. Actually while this is understandable, it is a fact that Iran under its theocratic regime does pose a threat to every decent country, so Trump must be seriously miffed that no one wants to join him. He says he doesn't care and that he will do it on his own, along with Benjamin Netanyahu. But he won't forget. Oh no. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES

Does it matter if Mojtaba Khamenei is alive or dead?

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth, his war secretary, have both been hinting that Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Iranian supreme leader, is either dead or seriously wounded from the first raid on Tehran two weeks ago. Either tbis is hot propaganda to stir the pot or they are trying to force him to come out into the open and show himself to prove he is not dead. If he is dead, will it matter? It depends how you like to interpret it. Why would the so-called Assembly of Experts have unanimously elected him as the successor to his late father if they knew he was dead or on the point of death? Maybe because there was such expectation around the world that Mojtaba would be the chosen one, the clerics felt they couldn't elect anyone else, otherwise it would send a message around the world that they had spurned the son of the revered Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So, instead of risking that, they went for Mojtaba even though he was in hospital receiving what they hoped would be life-saving medical treatment. Either way, he hasn't shown himself or spoken in public, and his enemy in Washington is gloating that he is dead or has lost a leg or some such. What the clerics can't do now is tell the world that actually the leader they chose is no longer with us. That would look pretty strange. So I guess for the monent, they are stuck with Mojtaba whether he is alive or dead. The reality is, however, that Ali Larinjani, secretary of the supreme national security council of Iran, is leading and running the country and is quite happy to walk in the streets to show himself off. He is still carrying out the orders of the late ayatollah and knows precisely what he is going to do to fight the US and Israel over the next few months. Yes, months, not weeks. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Right now there is no end state for the war in Iran

There is a danger that Donald Trump and his secretary for war Pete Hegseth are making the same mistake that befell a whole bunch of their predecessors which is simply this: massive military force wins wars. It absolutely doesn't. Especially if the firepower is only being directed from the air and from warhips and submarines launching missiles. A country the size of Iran, run by a fanatically ideological political regime backed by a fanatically ideological military force is not going to give in, even with four or five weeks of bombs and missiles. You can't change a whole country by bombing from the air. And if you put thousands of troops on the ground, you still can't control the country if the fanaticism is still there. Just look at the examples of Vietnam, Afghanistan and to a lesser extent, Iraq. Saddam Hussein was beaten and his regime fell but there followed another eight years of insurgency warfare. Trump cannot afford to face years of fighting in Iran, so even though he is sending Marine reinforcements to the region, what does he think they can achieve? They can launch an amphibious assault on the coastal areas from where the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' navy is hitting tankers in the Gulf waterway. But then you have boots on the ground which will mean casualties and occupation of sorts. You can already hear the groans: "here we go again".This war, if it is going to bring real results, can only be ended once the regime is deposed. This is effectively what Trump and Hegseth have in mind. But there is no sign that the new regime put in place after the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is going to give up. Lessons lessons lessons from the past. BUY MY NEW PAPERBACK AGENT REDRUTH, AN EXCITING SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES

Donald Trump hit by Iran's tanker war

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has turned the tables on President Trump’s “fire and fury” campaign. The Strait of Hormuz through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil passes, is blocked. Tankers and cargo vessels are on fire. The navy section of the IRGC has struck back with its most effective revenge card. Now the third tanker war in four decades has scuppered Trump’s hopes of declaring victory against Iran in the near future. Despite the massive destruction caused by US and Israeli bombers since the war began on Saturday, February 28, the IRGC still has the capacity and the skills to drag the whole of the Middle East into the conflict. Not so much with its short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles, not even by its long-range drones, although all have caused fear and damage across the region. But by its combat-proven ability to send across the Gulf waterway explosives-laden drone boats, fast attack craft armed with missiles and sea-skimming cruise missiles from concealed coastal launchers. It’s the IRGC navy’s asymmetric warfare versus the full panoply of America’s mighty armada of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers and Tomahawk-armed submarines. “Iran learned this lesson in the 1980s during the first tanker war, that if you have a conventional navy it’s vulnerable if you come up against the US Navy, so they went asymmetric and relied on cheap, small, in-shore craft that could cause a lot of damage. They didn’t require naval facilities and could just pop out, carry out an attack and go back into hiding,” said retired Vice Admiral Duncan Potts, much of whose Royal Navy career was spent in the Gulf facing daily threats from the IRGC. During the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s, Iraq tried to disrupt Iran’s oil exports, and Tehran retaliated by attacking ships in the Gulf associated with Baghdad’s trading partners. Iraq responded with its own tanker war. More than 400 ships were attacked, 239 of them oil tankers. Many countries were forced to send warships to guard the shipping route, including the US, the UK (operating the Royal Navy’s Armilla Patrol), the then Soviet Union and France. Potts who is president of the Royal Naval Association (PLEASE LEAVE THIS IN), said Admiral Brad Cooper, the American in command of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury, was well versed in IRGC tactics because he used to be commander of the US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. “I can’t believe the US won’t be directing their efforts on this IRGC capability, it’s a different approach to warfare,” Potts said. Potts first served in the Gulf when he was a 21-year-old sub-lieutenant in 1982 but went on to command HMS Southampton, a Type 42 destroyer, in the same region and became commander of Combined Task Force 158, an international naval group providing security in the northern Gulf in 2008 “I’ve always been up against the IRGC,” he said. A former senior Pentagon official said: “It’s hard to say at this point whether the US Navy is ahead of the threat or not. One thing for sure, this is not like the tanker war in the 1980s. The age of the drones [air and sea] has enabled Iran to fight precision warfare on the cheap. Mines which bedevilled us in the first Gulf War ]1991, will enable the Iranians to pose multiple problems for tanker traffic. So far in Operation Epic Fury, the focus has been on effecting-a strategic defeat on the Tehran regime– a shock and awe style of warfighting which has achieved impressive results, not least the knocking out of a large proportion of Iran’s ballistic-missile capability and destruction of command-and-control sites. Trump has also repeatedly referred to the obliteration of the Iranian navy - about 60 naval vessels so far, according to Admiral Cooper. But the Iranian navy wasn’t the real threat. “What the Iranians are doing now is entirely predictable, the IRGC is using small boat drones, jet skis in some cases, and mines to achieve a disproportionate impact. You don’t need a specialised warship to lay mines, a rowing boat can do it, depending on the mine,” said Kevin Rowlands who served with the Royal Navy’s Armilla Patrol in the Gulf in the 1990s. Mines are now being dropped in the water in the Strait of Hormuz by IRGC small boats, the US has confirmed. The disproportionate impact of the asymmetric warfare is clear to see. Before the launch of Operation Epic Fury, an average of about 153 commercial vessels transited through the Strait of Hormuz every day. Since March 1, the strait has effectively been closed to all traffic. Rowlands, a specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “The US navy with its aircraft carriers would probably prefer to engage with a peer adversary, like China, out in the open with long-range weapons and sensors, carrier against carrier. But what they have against Iran is more like counter-insurgency.” One way to combat the IRGC navy’s capabilities would be to launch an amphibious raid on the in-shore drones and missile launchers, he said. “But I don’t think there’s any intention of doing that, with boots on the ground,” he said. So, If the Iranians have learned lessons from the previous tanker wars – the second one was in 2019 during heightened tensions following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran – then the US, too, will have to adapt to counter the tricky warfare of the IRGC navy. If the US is intent on continuing the war, Rowlands said, there might come a time when commercial ships will need protecting. “But I don’t envisage a convoy of ships with warships alongside. It would be more about information-sharing and perhaps overhead surveillance aircraft or drones to warn tankers of threats,” he said. Ultimately, however, Admiral Cooper will have to do something to eliminate the asymmetric threat to the Gulf waterway. PLEASE BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH. BUY FROM AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS OR WATERSTSONES. ends

Iran's new supreme leader issues a warning but fails to appear in person

The first words have been spoken by the new leader of Iran since his elevation following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the words of Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late supreme leader, were read out by a news presenter. There was no sign of the new ruler. This says a number of things. First of all, he won't dare show his face anywhere in public or private because he knews the Israelis will target him and even now are probably doing their best to discover where he is hiding. He can't be in his late father's bunker because that has been destroyed by airstrikes. The second thing is he might still be receiving medical treatment for injuries he supposedly suffered when his father, mother and wife were all killed at the start of the joint US/Israeli strikes. There is no official confirmation that he was wounded. But it would seem suprising that he didn't suffer some injury from an attack which killed most of his family. His first words focused on the intention to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed for as long as the US and Israel continued to attack Iran. But there wasn't any rousing speech appealing to his countrymen to back him in his confrontation with Trump. But he made it clear he wanted revenge for the death of his father. I fear this war is going to go and on. This is not what Trump envisaged when he sent his bombers towards Iran on February 28. PLEASE BUY AND ENJOY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES

Unfortunately for Trump, the enemy (Iran) has a vote, too

Donald Trump has changed his mind a few times about how long the war against Iran will go on. First it was four or five weeks, then he thought the strikes were nearly completed, and now he is warning there is still stuff to do. But the bigger question is, not what the US will do in the next week or so, but what Iran will do. Iran may have lost a chunk of its top leadership but the second layer of leaders, from the new supreme leader downwards, are settling in and clearly the decision has been taken to fight and fight and use the one card they have which might make a difference to Trump's timetable: keeping the Strait of Hormuz shut for all shipping and attacking oil tankers sitting the other end of the Gulf waterway, stuck in limbo. The US military may have successfully targeted 19 or so Iranian navy warships. But Iran has the capacity to stop the flow of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz just by threatening to attack ships, because as a result international insurers have declined to indemnify shipping companies. No insurance, no tanker movements. Trump has warned Iran not to lay mines in the Strait but it's pretty likely that is what they will try to do. A massive blockage in the waterway where huge numbers of ships pass through every month will have a long-term impact on the world ecnomy. This is the threat posed by Iran and there is no way Trump can declare victory over Tehran until the Hormuz question has been resolved. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Trump's air war is devastating for Iran but not regime-changing

Bombs from the air are not going to bring about regime-change in Tehran. I thknk that can be safely predicted. The people of Iran might yearn to rise up against the mullahs but for very understandable reasons they are scared to do so. Thousands of families are still mourning the loss of their loved ones in January when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps opened fire on their own people and killed at least 7,000 and probably many more. Trump claims it's as higb as 30,000. He may be right. What we don't know is how many of the IRGC have been killed in the US/Israeli bomb and missile strikes. But it's a huge organisation and the majority I suspect will survive by the time the bombing stops, so the guards corps will still be functioning to keep the new supreme leader in power and the Iranian people suppressed. What sort of victory will that be for Trump? Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary (war secretary) has claimed today that bombing will go on until the job is done. But what is the job? You can't annihilate a country like Iran into submission? Or can you? I seriously doubt it. The end game is still a confusing mystery. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY PAPERBACK SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

The selected new supreme leader is Iran's two-fingers to Trump

Iran has done what Donald Trump said publicly would be unacceptable. The Assembly of Experts, all radical Shi'ite clerics, voted for the son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be the new supreme leader. Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei, the 56-year-old son, was definitely not on his list of suitable candidates (suitable to Washington) to take over the top slot. But Mojtaba Khamenei was duly selected and now, because of his tight, longstanding association with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he is probably the worst possible outcome for the US and Israel, now starting DayTen of the war against Tehran. The IRGC basically runs the country under the say-so of the supreme leader. This corps of up to 180,000 ayatollah devotees controls about 60 per cent of Iran's economy and is in charge of defence and foreign policy and is key to all the terrorist attacks throughout the Middle East and Europe, courtesy of its overseas wing, the Quds Force. So, with Mojtaba Khamenei now in charge, there is no hope of any kind of practical deal between Iran and the US, and no hope whatsoever for the poor Iranian people who just want a decent life. Israel has already threatened to bump off the new supreme leader and clearly he is going to be someone with a target on his back. But even if Israel succeeds, I doubt this will bring the Tehran regime to its knees. How is this war going to come to an end? PLEASE BUY AGENT REDUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS AND WATERSTSONES.

Can the US get its hands on Iran's 400 kilos of enriched uranium?

On the ninth day of the US/Israel war against Iran and still no attempt is being made to find and remove the 400 kilograms of 60 per cent enriched uranium which lies buried at the damaged Isfahan nuclear site. Too dangerous to send in US special forces, Donald Trump must be hoping that if he bombs Iran to capitulation the Tehran regime will just hand over the 400 kilos and have done with the ambition to build a bomb. But this is probably never going to happen. So US spy satellites are watching any move by the Iranians to dig out the canisters, and if they do, they will be bombed. The next stage in the bombmaking process, apart from enriching the 60 per cent material to fissile strength (90 per cent) is to turn the uranium from its present state which consists of uranium hexafluoride (ie gas) into metal for shaping into a warhead. At the moment the 400 kilos have little significance. but if the war ends and these canisters are still in Iranian hands, Trump will not be able to claim victory. So, right now there is stalemate. But this is an issue which has to be resolved before the war comes to an end. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

How Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was a sitting duck

By the time the Ayatollah began his day in Tehran, the spies listening to his calls were already extremely familiar with the habits of a supreme leader whose number was up. In orbit overhead, an Orion, the largest and most secretive of all American space satellites, could detect the voices of the regime as they exchanged increasingly worried messages about the build up of forces in the region. There were other high-tech efforts to track what is known as “life-pattern surveillance” of Ali Khamenei and his henchmen, including the now well-documented hacking of Tehran’s traffic camera network to track the movement of his bodyguards. All that remained in days and weeks before Khamenei’s killing, however, was the most prized asset of all: boots on the ground to confirm that all the technological surveillance was correct, that on a Saturday morning in Tehran, Khamenei would be a sitting duck. There, American intelligence officials turned to the masters of espionage in Iran: Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. Unrivalled in its experience of assassinating top military commanders and nuclear scientists, the agency was ultimately leading the plot to kill the supreme leader. It was only a matter of time before Khamenei and senior regime officials were eliminated, General Jack Keane, former vice-chief of staff of the US army and a trusted confidant of the Trump administration, told The Times. Indeed, there was little they could do to stop it, he said. “Although the Iranian leadership knew there was this risk, and changed their security procedures, even these changes had new habits which became predictable. Explaining the events that led up to Khamenei’s killing, Keane detailed an extensive intelligence operation that came to a stunning conclusion. “We were monitoring not just Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but the other leaders too,” he said. “And this is how we knew there was going to be a key meeting and that it would be in the presidential compound. We knew that Khamenei would not be in his bunker, given the meeting was scheduled for daytime, which provided a narrow opportunity to act.” Keane would know. The retired four-star general has long been one of the most influential military figures in Washington. When Donald Trump first won the White House in 2016, he wanted Keane to be his defence secretary but the general’s wife had just died, and Keane reluctantly declined the job. “We have a long experience in tracking high-value Islamic targets and the intelligence was very good,” he explained. “But Mossad provided the human intelligence, while we provided the other intelligence elements.” He said that the Israelis had “effectively taken up residence” in Tehran. “They resemble Persians as they speak Farsi without a hint of an accent and are well versed in the culture, customs and appropriate dress,” he said. “And they have developed scores of informants.” All this, said Keane, meant there was “no point” in the CIA attempting to have its own boots on the ground to “duplicate this sort of capability when they can rely on our close ally, which is the decision taken by previous administrations, given the multiple other threats worldwide that the CIA must entertain”. He added: “As such, we rely on Israeli human intelligence inside Iran and we don’t feel it’s necessary to replicate Mossad. We admire their dedication and continuous success they have achieved for many years. If the CIA’s human spying assets in Iran are limited, as Keane suggests, it enjoys technological superiority, deploying its Orion satellites and other overhead surveillance, such as the RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft that can scoop up communications, and Reaper intelligence-gathering drones. Both these systems have been operating near and over Iran. During the planning stage of the mission, the CIA and the National Security Agency provided back-up in tracking the supreme leader’s habits and routines. Analysis of signals intelligence data collected by an Orion, operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office and capable of listening in on mobile phone conversations from more than 22,000 miles above the Earth, supported Mossad’s daily reports of the whereabouts of Khamenei. Sources suggest that, had the Ayatollah remained in his bunker, he would still have been targeted. There was a plan to take him out there but it would have been more complex. Instead of going down this route, there was judged to be a unique and brief opportunity with the Iranian leaders all coming together. Mossad had been tracking Khamenei for months and there was a question about whether they should go ahead themselves or wait for the Americans in a joint operation. Both Mossad and the CIA knew that Khamenei had alternative sites that could enable him to survive outside Tehran. And there was a fear, too, that he might be spirited out of the capital. But Mossad’s sources discovered that the Ayatollah would be meeting his top officials in central Tehran on Saturday. Both in Israel and the US, the meeting was considered too opportunist a gift to ignore. So the decision was taken to “seize the moment”. There have been claims however, that by staying in central Tehran and not fleeing, Khamenei may have wanted to die as a martyr. US military sources suggest that, if the ultimate objective of war is to break your enemy, the targeting of leadership can have a huge impact on the way a future operation goes. That appears to be Israel’s modus operandi. On September 27, 2024, the Israeli air force carried out an airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut after receiving intelligence that the leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and his main commanders would all be together at a meeting. The death of Nasrallah and many of his commanders transformed the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israelis also learnt lessons from the 12-day war against Iran in June, when they assassinated key nuclear scientists and military commanders. In Operation Epic Fury, after the killing of Khamenei and some of his top commanders, Iranian ballistic missile launches were reduced by 50 per cent on day two, by 75 per cent on day three and by 86 per cent on day four. This was achieved not just by targeting Iran’s missiles, missile transportation systems and command and control with airstrikes but also with massive cyberattacks, US sources said. One US source said: “We knew from electronic eavesdropping that the Iranians planned to retaliate massively. Their thinking was that if on day one they could cause a lot of casualties it would begin to break the US and Israeli resolve. “They deliberately aimed most of their launches at the Gulf states. They hoped the Gulf nations would put pressure on the US to stand down because of the impact on oil prices and world economies and stability in the region.” However, the US has been knocking out Iran’s missiles, so the Iranians were prevented from carrying out the massive retaliation they had planned. The US military estimated that if Iran managed to launch salvos at the rate of 25 to 50 ballistic missiles at a time, a percentage would get through, even with the array of defences deployed. The Israelis have the Arrow anti-missile system, and the US have Thaad (terminal high-altitude area defence), Patriots and Standard SM-3 interceptors on Aegis guided missile destroyers. It turned out that Iran had only managed salvos of between two and five missiles, US sources said. Iranian drone strikes are also down by 73 per cent since the opening days of the war, according to General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory,” he said at a press conference this week. Keane said the mission to eliminate Khamenei showed the effectiveness of human intelligence on the ground being supplemented by electronic surveillance. “Put it all together,” he said, “and you can find anyone and track them at any given time.” PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER IN PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES

Trump wants Iran to surrender and become rich

Donald Trump is offering Iran a future of prosperity and wealth, provided the mullahs and ayatollahs drop out of the scene and hand over the government to a nice, peace-loving, western-orientated, democracy enthusiast who will transform the country's prospects. It is as they say, a big ask. Trump will want a hand in the choice of new leader. Another big ask. It all seems unreal except that the US president genuinely believes that you can bomb a country into democracy. I expect a large percentage of the Iranian population, especially the younger generation, would be very happy to have their country back and live a life that is closer to western democracy than Islamic autocracy. But to get there, the clerics who now the country with the backing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps will have other ideas. They have made it clear they are not going to surrrender to Trump's wishes, let alone consider total capitulation, as he has been demanding. If that remains the case, then it means poor Iran and the poor Iranian people who just want peace will face more and more bombing and more and more destruction. Peace is, unhappily, a long way off, thanks to the extreme clerics who run the show.

The long arm of the Trump war department

The most extraordinary event so far in Operation Epic Fury, Donald Trump's war against Iran, is the sinking of an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka. A long way from Iran - about 2,000 miles - and sunk by a US submarine firing torpedos. First, this is the first firing in anger by an American submarine since I don't know when, and, second, it shows the Pentagon, and more specifically US Central Command, is on the lookout for anything Iranian floating or flying which can be targeted. The Iranian warship, a frigate called Iris Dena, sunk about 25 miles off the southern Sri Lankan coast. It sent out a Mayday appeal and 32 of the sailors were rescued. But 80 sailors died. Because it was part of the Iranian navy I guess the Pentagon thought it was a legitimate target, following Trump's stated desire to demolish the whole of the ayatollah's navy. This was one warship that got away, until a US submarine sneaked up on it and fired a torpedo or two into its hull. The crew on board probably thought they were well out of it when they were suddenly attacked. If there are any other Iranian warships still sailing the seas, they better watch out.This is unquestionably an unequal war. Iran likes to think of itself as a big power with tons of ballistic missiles to threaten anyone who attacks the country. But the reality is, their weapons and armaments and warships are being picked off at a huge rate on a daily basis by the US and Israeli military, and soon Iran will have nothing left. This is clearly part of the Epic Fury plan. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY PAPERBACK SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

When is this war in Iran going to end?

The way the Israeli air force in particular is bombing Tehran every day, there won't be much left for the new supreme leader - supposedly the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's son, Mojtaba - to govern. wWhat's more, Israel has said it will assassinate the new leader anyway. This is serious stuff. In fact, it looks like Israel is taking over the momentum of this war, taking advantage of having the US in the air on its side pounding away as well, to do what it always wanted to do which was to remove from the planet the most serious risk to Israel's future. Right now, it seems this war is going to go on and on. Trump said four or five weeks but I reckon more like four or five months. Unless, the new ayatollah supreme leader, or his successor or his successor, depending on what Israel decides, begs for mercy and calls for a halt and formally gives up nuclear weapon ambitions and all ballistic missiles AND Iran's alignment with Hamas, Hezbollah, the nasty militias in Iraq and anyone else who benefits from Iranian money and weapons. All of which seems highly unlikely. So, does Trump really want a war lasting for months when, supposedly, he hates wars. I think there will come a point when something seriously awful happens, and the rest of the world will start to get involved to bring it all to an end. At the moment, there appears to be no effort anywhere, apart from UN entreaties, to stop the bombings. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Did Trump breach the executive order against assassinations?

In 1975 President Gerald Ford signed an Executive Order 11905 which banned any US official in whatever capacity, including the president himself, to engage in assassinations of heads of state and government leaders. It arose out of an investigation into the many attempts made by the CIA - eight in all - to cause the demise of Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator. That executive order was reaffirmed by President Jimmy Carter and President Ronald Reagan. The executive order holds to this day. Yet, the first objective of Operation Epic Fury appears to have been the targeting and killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. So, that represents the first assassination of a head of state since that original executive order. Technically it was the Israelis who killed Khamenei because it was Israeli air force fighter bombers which dropped the bombs on the office compound where he and many of his officials and military commanders were meeting. But it was CIA intelligence which helped to pinpoint the ayatollah's whereabouts. So, it was really a joint US/Israel operation which ended with the death of Iran's leader. I don't know how the White House legal counsel will have advised the president. But some sort of justification must have been proferred. It's certainly one of the reasons why Keir Starmer refused to support the US operation. No one, apart from a few rabid Iranians in Tehran, will mourn for the loss of the ayatollah whose rule was notable for repression, brutality and an obsession with having a nuclear bomb. PLEASE BUY AND ENJOY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Will US weapons stocks survive a long war with Iran?

War is an expensive business. Even with a defence budget of $1 trillion, the US has to calculate whether it has sufficient weapons in stock to prosecute a short-to-medium length war without endangering reserves. General Dan Caine, the top military adviser to President Trump, laid out his assessment of how far the munitions stockpiles would be depleted prior to the decision by the commander-in-chief to go to war with Iran. Trump has stated publicly that the US has all the weapons it needs both to strike Iran and defend against retaliatory attacks. By all accounts, General Caine’s conclusions were more cautionary. This is not to say that on Day Three of Operation Epic Fury, the US military is running out of missiles and missile-interceptors. Far from it. As Trump pointed out, the Pentagon has pre-positioned stocks of weapons around the world, some of it on giant ships in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and Subic Bay in the Philippines. However, a military superpower with global security responsibilities has to ensure at all times that in the event of a huge-scale war, such as that envisaged between the US and China, there would be reserves of weapons of every kind available to sustain a long conflict. This is the dilemma for the likes of General Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. If the attacks on Iran continue for four or five weeks, which Trump has now predicted, the arsenal of key weapons, notably Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, Patriot anti-missile systems, warship-carried Standard SM-3 interceptors and terminal high altitude area defence missiles (Thaad), will be significantly reduced. Each of these systems which have already played a substantial role in Operation Epic Fury, cost multiple millions of dollars. Replacements can take up to a year or more to come off the production line. The Pentagon for years functioned on the basis that it could fight two theatre wars simultaneously. But with the rising threat posed by China, this was dropped. This year’s National Defence Strategy document highlighted the need to defend the homeland and deter China in the Indo-Pacific. However, the US support for Ukraine over the last four years and the confrontation with Iran – in June last year during Operation Midnight Hammer against three nuclear sites, and today in the hoped-for regime-change mission – has expended offensive and defensive weapon systems on a huge scale. In the June operation, to protect Israel and countries in the Middle East where American forces are based, the US fired more than 150 Thaad missiles, about a quarter of the total inventory of 632 of these weapons which can intercept a ballistic missile in its final flight to a target. Thaad has been used to hit missiles targeting the United Arab Emirates in the present campaign. Each Thaad interceptor costs about $13 million, and it could take two or three years to replenish stocks. The US armada of warships sent to confront Iran brought hundreds of Tomahawks with them, each costing more than $1 million. Many were fired on the first day of Operation Epic Fury. They were also used against Islamic State targets in Nigeria in December, and frequently against Houthi rebel sites in Yemen. In Operation Midnight Hammer, more than 30 Tomahawks were fired at Iranian nuclear sites. As a result, the Pentagon has had to step up Tomahawk production but it can take two years to build one. Perhaps the greatest pressure for the Pentagon has come from the demand for the PAC-3 Patriot. missile system. Nineteen countries currently have Patriots, including Ukraine which always wants more, Taiwan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Poland. One Patriot interceptor costs about $4 million and this system will be crucial for knocking out short-range Iranian missiles. Like President Putin who has been forced to convert Russia into a war economy to build enough arms to continue his fight against Ukraine, the Trump administration has had to supercharge the US defence industrial base to make sure there will be enough weapons to engage in long-term, high-intensity warfare. Reserve stocks have already been raided to cope with Ukrainian demands. Meanwhile, Operation Epic Fury is a sobering reminder to the Pentagon of the need to spend significantly more money on weapon systems that will dictate the success or failure of future military operations. “Stocks are in fact depleted and although the Pentagon has started to address the shortfalls, it will take time to get production going at a sufficient rate to replenish munitions expended in the [current] campaign,” said Eric Edelman, a former top defence policy official at the Pentagon. Iran has or had about 3,000 ballistic missiles and large stocks of Shahed long-range attack drones. To counter the threat posed by the missiles targeting Israel and Gulf states, the US has had to deploy a layered defensive wall, consisting of Thaads, Patriots and SM-3 Standard interceptors which are based on Arleigh Burke -class destroyers and in Ohio-class submarines. A Standard interceptor costs more than $10 million. One unknown is whether the Pentagon will once again turn to the 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) to hit targets. It can only be carried by the B-2 Spirit strategic bomber. US Central Command has confirmed that B-2s, flying from their base in Missouri, more than 6,500 miles from Iran, have been used in attacks. However, 14 GBU-57 MOPs were used against Iran’s three principal nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer in June, and only 20 were built at a cost of up to $20 million each. The Pentagon is now urgently attempting to have more built, and a new version is also being developed. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. 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Death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was Donald Trump's first objective

As soon as Donald Trump wad told by the CIA that the whereabouts of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, had been tracked to an office building in central Tehran, the long-planned attack was hurriedly brought forward. The intelligence was absolutely crucial. Not only Khamenei but a whole bunch of his top advisers were all in the same building having a big discussion about the likely confrontation with the US. It was a gold mine of potential targets for a president who wanted above all to see regime-change in Tehran, followed by an about-turn on any ambition for a nuclear weapon. Khamenei, in power for nearly 40 years, was the key figure determined to keep alive the dream of having a nuclear weapon to threaten the US. With him gone, the debate in the White House would have argued, the nuclear bomb issue could also be resolved. The intelligence received about Khamenei's whereabouts was what is called actionable intelligence. In other words, act now before the intelligence goes cold or changes. So the Israelis were told and it was the Israeli air force given the task of bombing the office compound, not the Americans. Why, it's not clear. You would have thought that Trump would have wanted an American pilot to drop the fatal bombload on the Iranian leader, but the Israelis were selected. Israeli ground-attack aircraft took off at 6am and three hours later Khamenei was dead, along with the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the defence minister and the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces. It vwas the biggest possible blow to the Tehran regime, although Iranian officials were quick to say the regime would survive without Khamenei at the helm. It was a coup for Trump and a coup for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister. Israel had been tracking Khamenei for months, so that last bit of confirmation intelligence from the CIA was all Netanyahu needed to give the go ahead. One small thought: a dozen US F-22 Raptor stealth fighters were fowon from the UK to Israel last week. Could it be possible that any of these stealth bombers also took part in the killing of Khamenei. I'd be surprised if they weren't. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTSONES.

Trump's war on Iran

The bombs started to drop early this monring and look set to be falling on Tehran and other cities where there are military and regime targets for the next week or so. This is a war which Trump chose. He diodn't seek Congressional approval, althpugh Marco Riubio, the secretary of state, did paint a pretty obvious picture of imminent war when he addressed the eight senior members of the Senate and House of Reprresentative intelligence and armed services committees a few days ago. Whether an air campaign will help Trump to meet his objectives which include regime-change is another matter. The Iranians have responded by launching ballistic missiles at Israel, Dubai, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It looks as if the US and Israel together have tried to target the suspected hideaway of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the so-called Supreme Leader who has total authority over everything the Iranian military does. But there have been no reports of his demise. The more Iran's air defences are battered, the mnore unequal the war will become, and the US and Israel will be able to help themselves to whichever targets they choose. Provided Iran fails with its ballistic-missile launches - most of which have been intercepted so far - this war will be a one-way destruction path. Trump no doubt will soon be claiming victory. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. CHECK OUT AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS AND WATERSTONES.

JD Vance dismisses fear of a wider Middle East war

One assumes the US vice president and everyone else in the Trump administration is getting the same intelligence briefings about what might happen if America attacks Iran. Trump said General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would be easy, and now JD Vance is dismissing any concern that a strike by American forces would provoke a wider war in the Middle East. Let's hope Vance is right but judging by the bellicose words coming out of Tehran, the ayatollahs are planning for massive retaliation if the US goes ahead with an attack in the next few days or weeks. Well, they would, wouldn't they, and it might be all blather. But the fact is, there has to be a real risk that a strike by the US now might lead to a prolonged military confrontation that could draw in other countries. The last time the US attacked Iran in June last year, Tehran retaliated with hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed at Israel and some against a US base in Qatar. If the US strike is very limited, aimed at persuading Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal, then it might not lead to a wider war. But Trump has amassed such a large armada of warships and bombers in the region that it seems unlikely he has in mind just a token attack. What he says will be limited just means the bombing raids will last for days rather than months. But that could provoke Tehran to respond in a way that would lead to serious escalation. Then everything will get unpredictable.

Trump in attack mode vis a vis Iran

President Trump has given every indication that he plans to launch limited bombing raids on selected Iranian military targets to encourage the Tehran regime to bow to his wishes. However, based on Iran’s previous responses to US and Israeli military strikes and the determination of the regime to hang on to power, Trump could find himself confronting a larger-scale war with potentially unpredictable consequences, none of which would meet the president’s primary objective – to force Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, to stop the country’s uranium-enrichment programme. As a result of this uncertainty, why is Trump so eager now to resort to military action once again? Does he really think it will be easy, as he claims his top military adviser, General Dan Kaine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested? What are Trump’s mission objectives? It could be argued that the main mission, the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, has already been achieved. Operation Midnight Hammer last June caused severe damage to Iran’s three main nuclear plants. Trump warned at the time he would come back for more if Iran tried to rebuild the facilities. But there is no evidence that any of the targeted plants are being reconstructed, let alone operational. So, an attack on the crippled nuclear sites would be largely symbolic. Far greater a threat are Iran’s ballistic missiles which have multiplied since Operation Midnight Hammer. Missile production plants, targeted in the joint US/Israeli raids in June, were damaged but not beyond repair, and now, according to Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, “our missile power today far surpasses that of the 12-day war [the June attacks]”. Medium and intermediate-range ballistic missile launchers are reported to have been deployed to western and southern coastline positions in readiness for attacks on US forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, and against Israel. If regime-change is on Trump’s list of mission objectives, a limited bombing campaign would not achieve that. Long-lasting regime change requires “boots on the ground”, and Trump is not going to order troops into Iran. Only Israel, with its unique Mossad capabilities embedded in Iran, could attempt a ground-based targeting of regime heads. But even if partially successful, it would not bring about a new-look government in Tehran which would satisfyTrump. Is the US military ready and what difference has it made that the UK has banned bombing flights from British bases? Judging by the massive redeployments of fighter aircraft and bombers in recent weeks, sufficient firepower is now in place for a short-lived attack operation. But the UK government decision and similar restraints imposed by countries in the Middle East (notably Jordan and Qatar) have forced US Central Command – in charge of the planned strikes – to rewrite the mission blueprint. RAF Fairford, RAF Lakenheath and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean had to be crossed off. As a result, a dozen F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, one of America’s most advanced combat jets, flew out of the UK last week and are now based in Israel which, unlike Britain, will be happy to have the aircraft on its territory, either for bombing raids on Iran or to help protect Israeli cities from retaliatory strikes by Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles. Diego Garcia, the key British-owned (still) base for US long-range strategic bombing missions, is currently full of American military aircraft, notably F-16s and a range of air-refuelling tankers, but no B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. The F-16s would be there to protect Diego Garcia from Iranian attack. Six B-2s arrived in Diego Garcia in April last year for attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, after permission was granted by the UK government. This time, as with the Midnight Hammer operation last June, if B-2s are used, they will have to fly from their base in Missouri – a round trip of about 13,700 miles, double the distance from Diego Garcia and back. Why now and what could go wrong? A limited strike, especially if the US is joined by the Israeli air force, would unquestionably cause huge damage to targeted sites in Iran. The US has Tomahawk cruise missiles on board many of the 17 or so warships in the region, as well as the most advanced precision weapons carried by ground-attack aircraft on the two nuclear-powered carriers off Iran and in the eastern Mediterranean. Trump it seems was initially stirred to action by the deaths of thousands of protesters opposing the Tehran regime. But the build-up of US firepower has laid the foundations for a potential historic confrontation between Washington and Tehran. Is this really what Trump wanted, or has the massive show of force taken over the debate and added a momentum too rapid to stop? Prior to war, military commanders give their assessment of likely casualties. The worst-case scenario might be grim reading. In recent confrontations, Iran retaliated in relatively low--profile manner. The deployment of ballistic-missile launchers along the coast suggests Tehran has a mind to answer back with maximum force. American and Israeli lives will be at risk. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Four years of war and Ukraine still resilient

In his worst nightmare, Vladimir Putin could not have imagined that after four years of attacking Ukraine with everything bar tactical nuclear weapons, his neighbour would still be fighting back, and, what's more, launching long-range drones and missiles into Russian territory. Ukraine has been hit so relentlessly with Putin's bombs and missiles that the country, in the depth of a freezing winter, has only 60 per cent power supply to keep the lights and radiators working. Amd yet, Ukraine and the Ukrainian people have never given up and are intent on striking back however long it takes. This won't lead to victory, as some Ukrainian commanders still insist is possible, but the resilience and determination shown means Putin is facing a for-ever war. He may have a war economy to keep his arms factories going, but is he seriously prepared to prosecute this war for another year, two years, three years or much longer. Russia is already struggling economically and the casualty level is so high that the figure of 1.2 million dead, injured or missing, seems realistic. In the last year, the Russian army in Ukraine has managed just a few metres of land-grabbing a week. And this sort of advance after four years! If Kyiv is sensible, it should now spend much more time attacking Russia over the border, bringing the war closer and closer to Moscow. No restraint is required any longer because Putin has shown no interest in doing a deal. So, Ukraine has only one way forward. Give the Russians a real taste of their own medicine. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK, WITH A STRONG RUSSIAN THEME. AMAZON, RNWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Trump's top military man not happy abut attacking Iran

If it's true that General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Donald Trump's top military adviser, is unsure about the wisdom of attacking Iran, will the president listen to him? Trump doesn't like to be told what not to do, he wants to know how to do what he wants to do. So, General Caine better watch his step if he's warning that a strike on Iran might not be that easy. Well, of course it won't be easy, especially if the objective is to end the regime and turn Iran into a western-loving nation. You can't do that with a bombing campaign. It;s not the wyt it works. But what Caine seems to be worried about it is the likelihood of a war spreading throught the Middle East and lots of people being killed in lots of countries, including Americans. Everyone in Washington is trying to tell Trump that Iran won't be another Venezuela. But I guess Trump knows that. But the key thing here is, Trump wants a quick in and out war where the damage is so great for Iran the ayatollahs will concede and all will turn out fine.Then along comes his top military man who says, no, Mr President, it won't be like that, it could go aon and on and, by the way, we're pretty low on arms because of Ukraine and the previous op against Iran eight months ago. So, a long campaign against Iran could seriously reduce stocks. None of these arguments will hold water if the president is determined to hit Tehran hard. He will expect the Pentagon to deliver the goods, and to stop whingeing. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Can anything stop a Trump attack on Iran?

Normally, in fact always, the US president, current and past, wants to know whether a war, about to be launched, will definitely lead to victory. If the odds are against you, you don't want, as president of the most powerful nation on earth, to contemplate the possibility of defeat or failure. Vietnam has to be the marker for all US presidents. It was a disastrous failure in every possible way. Afghanistan was a failure. Iraq was disastrous but technically not a failure. Venezuela was a success, a huge success, militarily, and so far, diplomatically. A war with Iran has no guarantee of success. Of course, the US will be able to prosecute massive attacks and cause huge damage, and even, possibly, effect a change in leadership in Tehran. But there are no gaurantees it will be a victory for Donald Trump for a number of reasons: even if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme leader, is assassinated/exiled, another Shia cleric will succeed him and carry on the fight. There will be no regime-change as such, unless the US is prepared to send tens of thousands of troops to defeat the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the battlefield. That's not going to happen. So, in fact, what a US military strike from the air and from warships will do is cause a lot of destruction and probably many deaths but with the Tehran regim, albeit with different people, still in business and still hoping one day to develop a nuclear bomb. They have the scientists and engineers to do it. Iran also has the backing of Russia and China, so Tehran won't be isolated. So, if there is no guarantee of victory, why will Trump go ahead? Probably because he thinks he WILL succeed. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER IN PAPERBACK. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Is Iran resigned to war with the US?

No one expects Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, suddenly to capitulate and give in to all of the demands made by Donal dTrump. It's just not going to happen. By all accounts, Khamemei is prepared to die, anticipating a likjly assassination plot by the US military in the event of war, and has already made preparations for his successor. So if the Supreme Leader has realised war is inevitable, Trump is not going to win this confrontation by diplomacy. He will have to go to war to meet his objectives. This is a sobering conclusion but, I fear, realistic. It means that all the talking so far is fairly pointless. Trump wants a denuclearised Iran with only limited ballistic missiles, and an immasculated or changed regime which will no longer threaten the world in any way. It looks like Khamenei is preparing his country for war and retaliation, probably against both Israel and US military bases in the Middle East. Ballistic missile launchers have been lined up in the western and southern areas of Iran to carry out these retaliatory strikes. So, now it's a just a question of when Trump orders the bombers to set off. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS

Seventeen US warships are waiting for war off Iran

The armada that was built up in the Caribbean to snatch Nicolas Maduro in his pyjamas at a bunker home in Caracas was impressive enough, with an aircraft carrier and around 11 warships and more than 100 aircraft of one sort or another. Now we have Donald Trump's next and imminent military venture, to bomb Iran and oust the regime. For this much much bigger operation, Trump has assembled two aircraft carrier strike groups, a total of 17 warships, dozens of fighter aircraft and the rest of the paraphernalia required for a superpower military mission Trump says he doesn't want to resort to force, he would prefer a diplomatic deal but he has set the marker so high, Tehran and the ayatollahs are never going to agree. So, military force it will be. With the huge firepower available, there shouldn't be any doubt that Iran is going to have a terrifying few weeks once the go ahead has been given. Plus, Israel is almost bpund to join in. Assuming this scenario is correct, I would imagine the first strikes will focus on taking out as many ballistic missile sites and ballistic missile plants as possible to reduce the threat of a massive response from Iran against Israel and US forces in the Middle East. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has warned that Iran will sink one of the aircraft carriers. But this is more bluster than genuinbe threat. The US has surrounded the carriers with anti-missile protection on other warships, and the outcome of an American attack is not difficult to predict. Iran will be the huge and overwhelming loser. Will Tehran cave in and agree a humiliating settlement before the first bomb has dropped, or will it, unwisely, take on the might of the US military and try to score a few hits? If Iran follows the latter course, Trump will hit back even harder. There won't be a wider war throughout the Middle East, as so many people are predicting, it will be total defeat for Khamenei and his regime. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY SPY THRILLER PAPERBACK. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Ban on use of UK bases for Iran attack is staggering

We don't know exactly how the conversation went between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer earlier this week but the US president came away with a flea in his ear. He was told, according to the illustrious Times, that if he wanted to use RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean for planned bombing raids on Iran, he could forget it. The UK government, Starmer apparently said, was not going to authorise either base for attacks. In political, diplomatic, military, strategic terms, this is a staggering decision, one that will have angered Trump beyond words. If Trump does order more strikes on Iran, then the US will definitely want to use Fairford and Diego Garcia. Both these bases are specifically structured and adapted for American bombers, from B-2 strategic aircraft to F-22 ground-attack jets, and because both bases are around 2,500 miles from Iran, as opposed to 6,500 miles from the US to Iran, it makes a helluva difference in terms of combat bombing runs, logistics, wear and tear on aircraft and gas costs. The US military can still go ahead with the strikes on Iran without the two bases, but it won't be so easy, and to have an ally, such as Britain, refuse to allow key bases to be used is a massive slap in the face. Unless Starmer changes his mind, this is going to have a longlasting negative effect on relations with Washington while Trump is in the White House. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, THE SECOND IN A PLANNED TRILOGY STARRING PART-TIME SPY REBECCA STRONG.

Britain in state of turmoil

The arrest and detention of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former Prince Andrew, ex-Duke of York, younger brother of King Charles, still eighth in line to the throne, is the latest development in a series of ups and downs, mostly downs, which have hit this country like a hurricane and given the impression to the rest of the world that we are in turmoil. Actually, we are in turmoil. Andrew has been caught up in the Jeffery Epstein scandal because of his friendship with the paedophile and convicted sex offender. The former prince is currently sitting in a police cell! In addition, Donald Trump has turned on Keir Starmer over the Labour Government's bizarre and unnecessary handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius (costing us taxpayers £35 billion), the Starmer administration has now carried out 14 U-turns on major policy issues, the UK's former ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, is being investigated by the police over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and an allegation that when Business Secretary in the Labour government of Gordon Brown, he passed confidential Cabinet data to Epstein; the roads througout the country are pitted with potholes and the size of the welfare state - with rising youth unemployment and more and more people off work for mental health reasons - is growing by the day. The local elections are due in May and all the signs are that Nigel Farage and his Reform party will win win win. Starmer will then be pushed out and we'll get Angela Rayner as our unelected new prime minister. Turmoil indeed. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, YOU WILL LOVE IT. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

No end in sight of the war in Ukraine

Whatever the Americans say about "meaningful progress" in the latest talks to stop the war in Ukraine, in reality Donald Trump's two main envoys, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, are no closer to a settlement than they were when negotiations began. The two envoys, neither of whom are trained diplomats, are basically Trump message-carriers, repeating endlessly the need to find a solution based on transfer of land. Poor Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, must feel sick at heart that every time his negotiators sit down for talks with the Russians, they argue for hours about compromise but pretty much all on the Ukrainian side, not the Russians who of course started the war in the first place. Zelensky said it was "unfair" that the Americans didn't insist on the Russians compromising, too. The trouble is, Putin is not going to compromise, not on the question of the Donbas regio in eastern Ukraine. He wants all of it and for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from the bits they still control.That message from the Kremlin hasn't changed. So it's difficult to see what was "meaningful" in the latest talks in Geneva. I anticipate Putin will get even tougher with his territorial demands because he will hope that Trump will become distracted by Iran and the prospects of a wir within the next month or so. Putin isn't going to do Trump any favours by suddenly agreeing to compromise on the land issue. So, nothing of note is going to happen in the Geneva talks, just more arguing round and round in familiar circles. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER STARRING REBECCA STRONG. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS

The world cannot afford a nuclear-armed Iran

If there is any US president who is actually going to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, it is probably Donald Trump. All his predecessors vowed that Iran could never become a nuclear power but did nothing about it except try to use diplomacy and sanctions to restrain Tehran's ambitions. Obama went the furthest with his 2015 deal. But, actually, the small print still allowed Iran to restart its uranium-enrichment programme eventually. The hope was that Iran would change its ambitions altogether and with the lifting of sanctions give up the nukes idea and concentrate on developing a better, more flourishing country. But that was somewhat naive because we are talking here about the most extreme form of Islamic revolitionary politics, and successive Supreme Leaders said categorically it was the right of the Iranian nation to enrich uranium. So, even if Obama's deal had survived the arrival of Trump in the White House in 2016, it was still a risk that Iran would go nuclear in the distant future. Now, we are in a totally different situation, with Trump making it clear that, unlike his predecessors, he is ready to bomb Iran to bits to stop the country continuing to be a menace to global security. I am begininng to think that whatever Iran comes up with at the reopening of talks with the US, nothing will be good enough to stop the bombing. So in the next month or so, there will probably be a whole lot of bombing. Will it fnally end Tehran's ambition to be nuclear and a pain in the neck in the Middle East, or will it just lead to more war, and an even more determined Iran? PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER - AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES

Should the UK and France provide nuclear cover for Europe?

Both the UK and France have what is called a minimum nuclear deterrent. In other words, unlike the US and Russia which have several thousand nuclear warheads, the British and French arsenals have just enough to deter an enemy such as Russia (Uk, 225 and France, 290). But with the US under Donald Trump urging Europe to spend more and more on defence and not to rely on American to rush to their aid at every possible crisis moment, could and should the Brits and French restructure their nuke arsenals to provide a broad cover for Europe as a whole? It might sound relatively straightforward but of course it isn't. At what point, for example, would the UK and/or France decide it would be justified to threaten to fire nuclear missiles at Russia if Moscow invaded Poland or Latvia or Finland? At present the UK and France retain independent nuclear deterrents, ready to be used in the event of a possible crushing defeat in a conventional war. But the UK and France would not resort to the nuclear option unless the very existence of the two countries was at risk. It is, if you like, a selfish deterrent. It covers the sovereignty of the UK and France but not of the rest of Europe. The US, on the other hand, has committed its nuclear weapons to form a deterrent umbrella over the whole of the North American continent AND Europe. It's the ultimate protection. But now there has to be doubt about whether the Trump administration would launch anything nuclear if some part or all parts of Europe came under mass conventional or nuclear attack. Nuclear deterrence has a theology all of its own and it's changing fast. What we can't have is other members of Europe deciding to go nuclear, developing their own arsenals. That would lead to nuclear proliferation across the globe. For the UK and France to provide a European nuclear umbrella, both nations would need to double or triple their warhead arsenals. That would also lead to proliferation elsewhere and make the world an even more dangerous place. And the costs would be huge, albeit the rest of Europe would be expected to contribute financially. On the whole, it's not a good idea. Spend a lot more on conventional defence and create deterrence that way. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, SEE AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Iran claims it's ready for compromise

Tehran, or at least the deputy foreign minister, is claiming that Iran is ready for compromise with the Americans to get a nuclear deal underway and agreed. In an interview with the BBC, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, says the ball is now in the US court. But actually, this is all playing games. The ball is very much in Iran's court. Donald Trump has stipulated, with Israel pushing hard in the background, that Iran must broaden the current round of talks by compromising not just on nukes but also on the other issues that stand in the way of an all-round settlement - a reduction in ballistic missiles and removing support for proxy militia forces in the Middle East. Takht-Ravanachi as good as ruled out any concessions on these issues. So a deal seems most unlikely. The interview with the BBC was just another example of Iran stretching it out for as long as possible, giving the impression that it's ready for a deal provided, of course, the quid pro quo is that the US lifts sanctions which have crippled the country's economy for years. He promised compromise but gives no clue what that means. It surely won't be enough to satisfy Trump and defnitely not enough to satisfy Benjamin Netanyahu. So, military action would now seem to be almost inevitable. Probably some time in the middle of March. Unless Tehran really does get frightened and offers a lot more. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, ANOTHER REBECCA STRONG SPY THRILLER, AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS

Marco Rubio brings back the smile on Europe's face

Marco Rubio isn't America's top diplomat for nothing. He came to the Munich security conference and made evryone breathe with a sigh of relief when he said that the US and Europe were, effectievly, the same family and would always be partners. So different from Vice President JD Vance's speech in Munich a year ago when he pretty much tore into Europe over its immigration policy and failure to safeguard free speech. He left a very nasty taste in the mouth. But Rubio is a gentler soul and he tried to reassure Europeans that the US was not cutting off from Europe but still valued the shared partnership and alliance. However, although the language was softer, the reality is that he, too, has underlined the White House message that Europe has to be stronger and better able to defend itself, a warning which most, if not all, European leaders are taking on board. I see Keir Starmer, in his Munich speech, said Europe (including the UK) must be ready to fight (Russia). As I have said in a previous blog, surely what needs to be said is that Europe as a whole should be arming itself with mnodern weapons of war in order to DETER Russia and other potential adversaries. Fighting a war would be disastrous for Europe and for the world. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. YOU WILL LOVE IT. SEE AMAZON, WATERSTONES OR ROWANVALE BOOKS

The world order has gone, says German chancellor

This is the weekend when all the politically powerful meet in Munich for the annual security conference and already the warning has gone out: the world order we knew and loved has gone for good. Nothing is the same. Everything we relied on before is no longer valid. The biggest warning came from Chancellor Mertz of Germany who is increasingly taking on the role of speaking for and acting for the whole of Europe. He told the conference that international rules have changed beyond recognition. What he and all the others meant to say was that, thanks to Donald Trump, we can't trust the US to come to our aid any more. Europe has to stand on its own feet. It is exraordinary, althpugh not surprising, that Trump has managed, in his second term, to unsettle what before was regarded as set in concrete, ie the Transatlantic alliance. Previous US presidents all confirmed that Nato and the US leadership of the alliance were iron-clad commitments for Washington. There was never any doubt. But all that has gone, and the Munich conference is another exmaple - after the meeting in Davos earlier this year - of where the world's leaders are walking around not knowing what is happening and what the future holds. But, basically, the time for whingeing and worrying is over. The fact is, Trump will be in power for another three years and the changes he has begun to make will stay for ever. Europe has to get tougher and more robust and more unified. Europe without the US being at their beck and call is the reality today, and European leaders will have to accept it. However, I still firmly believe that Nato will survive all these changes and probably become a better and more powerful organisation than ever. That should surely be everyone's goal in the western world.

Trump improves his options for striking Iran

Donald Trump appears to be peparing even more firepower for the waters off Iran. Another aircraft carrier may be earmarked for Iran duty, alongside the USS Abraham Lincoln which is already there. The most likely carrier seems to be the USS George HW Bush which could be deployed from its base in the US. The journey to the Gulf would take three or four weeks. We can probably safely say that no military action is likely before the new carrier arrives. Meanwhile, after his session with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Trump has made it clear he wants to concentrate on getting a nuclear deal first with Tehran, holding back the military option while US and Iran squabble over what a nukes deal would look like. If nothing has been ahcieved while the second carrier heads for the Gulf (once Trump approves), then I would imagine the pressure for military force will increase significantly. Netanyahu has always been sceptical about a nuclear deal with Iran. He didn't like the last one, brokered by Barack Obama in 2015, and he won't like the Trump version, if it comes about, unless there are other agreements to curb Iran's huge stock of ballistic missiles, all capable of reaching targets in Israel. So now everything will depend on when or if the second carrier is sent to the Gulf. If Trump gives the go ahead, the clock for military action will start ticking. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES, STARRING REBECCA STRONG, ARTIST AND SPY. BUY THROUGH AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS OR WATERSTONES.

Can Iran ever be trusted to keep their word?

Iran has a reputation for being devious, and for that reason it is highly unlikely that any deal Donald Trump might fix with Tehran will actually hold water. Obama did a nukes deal with Iran in 2015 but it was never strong enough to stop Iran from secretly continuing its ambition to build a bomb, even if the programme had to be curtailed under the restrictions imposed by the treaty that was signed. In other words, Iran under its present regime can never be trusted. I feel sorriest for the Iranian people who have had to put up with this regime ever since the revolution in 1979. So, is this the right time for the US to take action that might in the end lead to regime-change? The answer is not simple. If regime-change can only be brought about by war, that won't help the Iranian people who will suffer even more. Many will be killed. It might sound the only solution but violence cannot be the answer. The trouble is, the tens of thousands who bravely protested in the streets against the regime, were brutally repressed. Thousands were killed by the so-called security authorities, many of them moving around on motorbikes, opening fire at random. Now there are even reports of wounded protesters in hosptals being shot in the head as they lie in their beds. A war between Iran and the US and probably Israel, will lead to more and more violence against the poor Iranian people. War or no war, they will always be the victims.

Netanyahu on mission to the White House

When Benjamin Betanyahu jumps on the first available plane to Washington to see Donald Trump, you know he is very anxious about something. The Israeli prime minister clearly took fright when Trump said the first round of new talks with Iran had gone very well. He coild see the unpredictable US president suddenly doing a deal which would, in Israeli eyes, be half-cocked. Netanyahu desperately wants Trump to stick to his principles which would mean the president refusing to concede on any of his objectives vis a vis Tehran: scrapping the nuke programme, handing over all highly enriched uranium, reducing hugely the ballistic-missile programme and axeing all links to the proxy militia scattered throughout the Middle East. Trump shouldn't need to be persuaded because when he decided in his first term of office to take the US out of the Obama-brokered nuclear deal with Tehran, he said it was becausee the deal was terrible, didn't limit the nukes programme sufficiently and didn't include any restrictions on ballistic missiles or those proxy forces working their evil on behalf of Tehran. So, if that was his feeling in his first term, Netanyahu wants to make sure Trump still abides by those red lines. The reference to how good the talks were in Muscat, Oman, last week upset Netanyahu because the Iranian negotiator, the foreign minister, said all he wanted to talk about was nukes. Netanyahu has a point. Trump gets carried away with these high-profile talks and seems to be optimistic that a deal can be done. Despite sending a massive armada of warships to threaten Iran, Trump has been very open that he doesn't want a war. So the talks are absolutely key. Netanyahu will try to persuade Trump that now is the time to drive the hardest bargain and get those ballistic missiles which threaten Israel more than anywhere else, must be curtailed. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

If Epstein was a Russian spy, Moscow must be cheering

As the Jeffrey Epstein scandal spreads to almost every corner of the planet, there has been much speculation that this paedophile financier and Ultimate Creep may have been a Russian spy. In other words, working with the Ruskies to do down as many so-called elite rich buddies as possible to cause the downfall of institutions and governments in the West. Could this have been his real plot? If it was and if the Russians really did work with him, then it has been an amazing success story for Moscow, because more and more rich and famous and otherwise are being drawn into this appalling scandal. Somehow I doubt the Russian connection. It's just that whenever a scandal of this enormity breaks, clever people start thinking there must be more to it. There has even been talk that Epstein was working secretly for Mossad. To what end, for goodness sake? Basically, Epstein was a brilliant, charming sleazebag who charmed the pants off multiple people, including royalty and the richest individuals on earth by offering to fulfill their fantasies free of charge. It was all about temptation temptation temptation, and when offered on a plate, it was just too irrestible. Clearly this is the case because the names in his contacts book cover a huge network of pleasure-seeking males. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, DESCRIBED BY ONE REVIEWER AS BETTER THAN JAMES BOND. AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Why was a US admiral at the Iran talks?

The oresence of a fully uniformed US admiral at the talks on Friday between American and Iranian delegates was a nice touch. More a piece of theatre than a diplomatic move. I don't suppose Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of Central Command, and thus the boss of the armada of ships currently in the Gulf off Iran, had to actually say anything other than "how do you do, good to meet you" when he was introduced to Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister. But the symbolism was huge. It was Donald Trump's way of saying to Tehran, "we're here to do a diplomatic deal but if you don't play ball then Admiral Cooper has his orders to start bombing military sites in Iran". I'm sure the Iranian foreign minister got the message. I wonder if the Iranians were warned beforehand that the admiral in his uniform would be participating in the talks, held in Muscat in Oman. Central Command covers 16 countries including all of the nations in the Gulf region. So for the admiral it was a chance to meet an important figure representing the country which basically provides most of the aggravation in the Middle East, either directly or indirectly through its proxy militia. The involvement of Admiral Cooper in Muscat was an in-your-face signal from Trump that his massive armada, headed by the carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, is ready and waiting for the order to strike at Iran if the talks fail to achieve the required objectives: an end to Iran's nuclear ambitions, the handover of all the 60 per cent-enriched uraniuma, a halt to all further uranium-enrichment, the axeing of all links to Iran's proxy forces in the Middle East such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, and the stopping of all killings of protesters by the security forces. It's a big ask which Araghchi has already dutifully dismissed. He wants just the nuclear issue to be discussed. He will have returned to Tehran, hoever, with the image of Admiral Cooper staring at him across the table. PLEASE BUY AND ENJOY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Trump wants the war in Ukraine to end by June

It's always risky to name a date to end a war that has shown no sign yet of ever coming to an end. Donald Trump's latest deadline for stopping the killings and destruction is June. It sounds arbitrary except that if the war were to end by that month, it would probably help the Republicans to keep their seats in the US mid-term elections in November. So we can expect a massive push from Washington to fix many more trilateral talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine to find the formula that so far has been sadly absent. Eventually, we could see a summit between Trump, Putin and Zelensky, although that would seem to be pie-in-the-sky at the moment. There won't be a summit of this stature until the negotiators have done a deal, and that's as far off as ever. Meanwhile, to emphasise the leverage that Putin has over Zelesnky, his forces have been pounding Ukraine's energy sector with hundreds of drones and amissiles, so that large numbers of Ukrainians are living in freezing conditions. War is always cruel, but Putin is masterminding the cruellest of all, making as many civilians as possible suffer from appalling cold temperatures, lack of water, and no power to cook food. How many Ukrainians are dying from cold or lack of food? Under Trump's timetable this will all come to an end in four months. I seriously doubt it. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. YOU WILL LOVE IT, I GUARANTEE!!

Could there be a new nuclear arms race?

The expiration of the New Start Treaty reducing the size of the nuclear arsenals held by the United States and Russia has inevitably led to fears that the world is about to see a so-called nuclear arms race with each of the two signatories to that treaty rushing ahead to build more and more warheads and missiles. But it's not in their interest to start spending vast new sums on increasing the size of the arsenals. There are already way too many to make the Cold War's Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) concept any less or more effective. Russia certainly can't afford to build and field hundreds or thousands more nukes, and nor can the US. The focus will surely be more on modernising the nukes now getting old and potentially unreliable, rather than increasing stocks. However, when a treaty of such historic importance expires without any talk of urgent meetings to extend it, should the world be worried? Donald Trump's approach is actually the right one. Instead of trying to extend the New Start Treaty, he says he wants a totally new treaty and for it to be signed by China as well. This is surely the way forward. China will resist it but with Beijing planning to build its stock of nuclear warheads from 600 to at least 1,000 by 2030, there is every reason to persuade Beijing to join a treaty to keep nuclear stocks to a limited level, even though China is far behind the American and Russian stockpiles. Meanwhile, the real arms race will continue to be in developing hypersonic missiles, nuclear or conventionally armed. A new treaty limiting these weapons would make sense, too. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER - AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES.

Latest Russia/Ukraine talks go nowhere

The exchange of a few hundred prisoners of war was all that was achieved in the latest talks involving Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi. You could argue that was at least something. But on the question of the two biggest obstacles to peace - land and Ukraine's future security guarantees from the US - there was seemingly no movement at all. When is there ever going to be a change of mind on Putin's part, or Zelensky's part? Neither is prepared to give up their red line demands - Putin to have the whole of Donbas, asnd Zelensky to hold onto the 20 per cent of land his military still control in Donetsk in the Donbas region. It's not just an impasse, it's an unmoveable blockage. Whatever Donald Trump says to Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader is never going to back down on this issue, and whatever incentives Trump gives to Putin to concede the land issue. the Russian leader is never going to stop the war until he gets Donbas on a plate. Not just that, he wants agreement for Donbas to be designated a Russian province and for the world to recognise it. On the security question, we have heard before that Zelensky has been offered a deal which he says is satisfactory. But if and when it is actually implemented, what will it involve? Not US troops stationed in Ukraine. That will never happen. Not US fighter jets based in Ukraine. That won't happen either. So how strong will the guarantees be once the war is over, to give Kyiv reassurance that in the event of future aggression from Moscow, the US will rush to help? The US is never going to agree a deal in which there is a possibility that as a result the US and Russia will be at war. That's just not going to happen, either, not while Trump is president. PLEASE BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH. IT'S IN PAPERBACK. SEE AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Can Ukraine and Russia ever do a deal?

Representatives from Russia, Ukraine and the US are gathering in Abu Dhabi for a second round of talks to try and forge a peace settlement to end the four-year war. But is there really any hope of a breakthrough when both sides are so adamant about the land issue. Zelensky cannot envisage any time when he might consider giving up the whole of the Donbas to the Russians without a fight; and Putin says there will be no end to the war until Kyiv hands over Donbas. According to newspaper reports, there is a growing feeling in Ukraine, especially perhaps in Donbas, that getting peace would be better than hanging on for dear life to the bits of Donbas still controlled by Ukraine. In fact it's about 20 per cent of Donetsk, one of two provinces in the Donbas region. That's a lot of land to surrender, especially as it includes crucial defensive positions which so far have managed to keep the Russian military at bay for the last four years. Has it come to this? Peace or land? This is the question which is going to come up again and again in the Abu Dhabi talks. I just don't see this being resolved. Zelensky is never going to agree. Zelensky can't agree. Not when so many Ukrainian lives have been lost in Moscow's relentless bombing and drone campaign in Donbas. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, STARRING SPY HEROINE REBECCA STRONG. SEE AMAZON, WATERSTONES, ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Why did so many people love Jeffrey Epstein?

I don't think I'm misquoting Donald Trump who described Jeffrey Epstein as a slezebag and creep. But Trump for a time also fell under his spell, even if in later years he banned him from his Mar-a-Lago resort residence. The queue of people from the top end of society who fell for Epstein's charms was so long that he managed to absorb into his web huge numbers of rich and famous - and of course royalty. Now, in hindsight, with so much known about what he was doing, it beggars belief that such people carried on adoring him, even when they knew or suspected he was abusing young women/girls. There have been other examples over the years of people becoming attracted to monster human beings, but Epstein is on a pedestal all of his own. His supposed charm and money and powerful friends brought people with similar attributes running to his door. The Epstein club was a unique haven for the rich and famous who wanted to indulge in Epstein's world, supposedly with the promise of secrecy and omerta (the Mafia 'code' for keeping quiet). He was found out and now everyone in his vast contacts book is being exposed. In a brilliant interview in The Times today between Peter Mandelson, former British ambassador to the US, and Katy Balls, Washington editor, the now-disgraced figure in the Epstein scandal gives a pretty good insight into how he got drawn into the Epstein world. He said he was invited to one of Epstein's famous dinner parties and found himself next to a brilliant brain surgeon, and opposite was Bill Gates, with Bill Clinton down the other end of the table. Power.and glamour and influence were on the menu. It doesn't excuse the appalling lack of judgement on the part of everyone who succumbed to Epstein's charms. But it should be a lesson for all power-chasing politicians and the like to take a step back when a seemingly engaging, island-owning charmer shakes your hand and invites you to a swanky dinner party. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, SEQUEL TO SHADOW LIVES. CHECK OUT AMAZON, WATERSTONES, AND ROWANVALE BOOKS

Is Greenland really important for Trump's Golden Dome?

Negotiations for an American take-over of Greenland have gone quiet. The threat of military action may have been abandoned, for the moment, but Trump still wants the largest island in the world. Much of the focus has been on his desire to grab the rare earth minerals buried under Greenland. But the priority reason has already been hinted at. Trump appears to have been told by the Pentagon that if he is to have his Golden Dome anti-missile system to protect the whole of the US, he must acquire Greenland to convert it into a huge anti-missile base, with interceptors in silos all over the island. Situated as it is on the edge of the Arctic, Greenland is in the perfect spot for intercepting hostile nuclear missiles coming from Russia, China or North Korea. These ballistic missiles, were they ever to be launched against the North American continent, would fly above the Earth over the North Pole. At present, there are silos with interceptors in Alaska and California, and there has been much discussion about installing some in New York State. But if the first layer of defence was established on Greenland, it would increase by a significant amount the ability to knock out enemy nukes aiming for the US. At present the US only has an early-warning missile installation site on northwest Greenland. Trump wants to take control of Greenland because he feels America can then do what it wants on the island to provide the sort of missile defence he hopes the Golden Dome will be able to guarantee. But in reality, with negotiations, there is probably a solution to Trump's massive military expansion plans for Greenland without grabbing its sovereignty at the same time. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH. YOU WILL LOVE IT. CHECK OUT AMAZON, WATERSTONES AND ROWANVALE BOOKS.

Should Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor testify to US Congress?

On the face of it, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, former Prince Andrew and ex-Duke of York, should be willing to fly to the US and give whatever evidence he can to the Congressional committee examining the repercussions of the scandal surrounding the late disgraced sex trafficker and underage girl sex abuser Jeffry Epstein. The younger brother of King Charles knew Epstein over an extended period and has had a number of very revealing and totally inappropriate photos taken of him with young girls allegedly supplied by his friend Epstein. If he knows much more about Epstein, then for the sake of the young girl victims, should he not be obliged to appear before Congress and give the victims and their families further insight into the life of a man who appears to have trapped hundreds, if not thousands, of people into his web? The answer is more complex than that. What would actually be achieved by Andrew appearing before Congress. First of all, he would face humiliation. Congressional panels are known to be pretty harsh and unforgiving. Serve him right, some might argue, but Andrew has already been humiliated in the public's eyes. He agreed, unwisely, to be interviewed on camera in 2019 by Emily Maitlis from which he has never recovered. The King has removed all his titles. In the Royal Family he is now a nobody. He insists he never did anything wrong and whether that is to be believed or not, he is now a sorry figure. Humiliation enough in my view. Let him carry on his life out of the public view and somehow come to terms with his downfall. We don't need another public spectacle, this time in Washington, with the world's press listening and watching. The second reason for Andrew not to go Washington would be the further humiliation it would bring to the monarchy as a whole. Charles has done his best to sort out the scandals in his family, he has effectively consigned his brother to a life of no meaning. It would be devastating for the king to see his brother being torn apart by over-eager American lawmakers. I think enough's enough, and for that reason, Keir Starmer is totally wrong and discourteous to the monarch and the monarchy to call for Andrew to give evidence to Congress. Totally wrong.

Why is Israel still bombing Gaza?

There is no question that Hamas in Gaza is and will continue to violate the ceasefire agreed under the Trump three-phase deal. Israel has evidence that Hamas gunmen are carrying out activities that breach the conditions. However, why does the Israeli government feel it is necessary each time it spots a Hamas gunman emerging from an underground bunker to launch deadly airstrikes which kill a lot of people, gunmen and civilians. The strikes today have killed 28 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory. The figure is horrific, adding to the 73,000 Palestinians killed since the Israel Defence Forces launched strikes on Gaza following the massacre by Hamas on October 7 2023. Normally one would expect Hamas to exaggerate the death toll. But an Israeli official has now confirmed the Hamas figure of around 73,000. So 28 people probably did die today in the latest Israeli bombing raids. Collateral damage - that dreadful phrase - has been a huge factor in the war in Gaza. Women and children in their thousands have been killed. Hamas had no compunction about killing or kidnapping women, young or old. But Israel is a sophisticated military power with tremendous intelligence capabilities. So why are women and children in Gaza still being killed in what is supposed to be an official, internationally-recognised and mandated ceasefire?

China's very limited benevolence towards Britain

A big session between two leaders, whoever they are, is supposed to end up with lots of goodies for each to boast about when they go home. But following the end of Sir Keir Starmer's visit to China and face-to-face with President Xi Zinping, the diplomatic goodies agreed between them have been more like scattered crumbs for the British prime minister: a deal not to demand a visa for British visitors, the removal of tariffs on whisky and the lifting of sanctions on a few British parliamentarians. Not exactly a diplomatic triumph. Whereas for Xi, he can be more than satisfied with hosting visits in quick succession from Mark Carney, prime minister of Canada, President Emmanuel Macron of France and now Keir Starmer. All the visits to pay homage to Xi have already infuriated Donald Trump. That alone will give Xi a lot of satisfaction because China is fast catching up the US as a global military and economic superpower, and the more he can develop western trade and political partnerships, the better for the future of his country and the communist party which runs it. If Starmer has brought back from Beijing nothing more than free visas, sanctions-lifting for MPs, and cheaper whisky exports, then it looks like another historic diplomatic coup for Beijing.