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.