Iran is now the most-watched country on the planet

Whatever happens in and to Iran in the next six months, every move the ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard make that looks like they are trying to revive their damaged nuclear programme and advance towards 90-per-cent enriched uranium for a bomb will be watched and eavesdropped on by both Israel and the United States. Nothing they do will go unnoticed. Mossad agents who have penetrated the Iranian regime for years will be sending back intelligence reports to make sure Tehran's intentions are going to be assessed in the finest detail. There will be no escape for Tehran's nuclear scientists. Many of them have been assassinated already. Others will no doubt be wondering every day they awake whether Mossad will be waiting for them. How diplomacy can succeed when there is this sort of pressure on the regime is difficult to fathom. But both the US and Israel must be hoping that the tension will increase to such a level that the regime itself will fall or be toppled. But one should feel pity for the younger generation in Iran who are probably desperate to lead a decent more western-style life, free of repression by the ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard but who will be too scared to protest at the state of their lives.

Kim Jong Un must be laughing his head off

The 41-year-old Supreme Dictator of North Korea must be grinning and slapping his thighs in enjoyment. He's sorry for Iran, of course, for the Israeli and US attacks on the three nuclear sites, but Kim Jong Un is sitting pretty with his nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBMs) and his plutonium-producing reactors and thinking to himself: "There's no way anyone, including and especially the United States even under Donald Trump, is going to do the same to me and my stockpile of nukes. I'm a winner." And he's right, he has somehow managed to develop nuclear warheads, carry out nuclear tests when all other nuclear nations had stopped doing them, launched ICBM tests over Japan and has got away with it. No one has done anything to stop him. And now it's all too late. There is absolutely no way Kim Jong Un is ever going to give up his nukes. He has built himself a super-deterrence to stop anyone attacking North Korea (not that anyone wanted to) and he knows he can actually threaten almost every city in the United States with a nuclear-armed ICBM. Iran could never do that and won't ever be able to do that. North Korea has won every battle, diplomatic, political and military (by deterrence). With all the fuss about the "successful" strikes on Iran's nukes, hardly anyone dares mention North Korea and why the Little Dictator was able to build his nuclear bombs with impunity. The sanctions have made no difference. He just exports and imports clandestinely. There are always countries who will trade with anyone when they need to. China backs him. Putin backs him. Kim Jong Un is laughing all the way to the nuclear bunker.

The US it seems can't avoid wars

Coming into office and saying there will be no more for-ever wars is a perfectly respectable platform but if you are the president of the United States, avoiding wars seems to be an impossible objective. That's one of the lessons learnt by Donald Trump. Ok, the attack on Iranian nuke sites doesn't signify a for-ever war. But I doubt the attacks over last weekend will be the last. Iran will always pose a threat, nuclear or otherwise, so in some senses the confrontation between the US and Iran is for ever. Then there's the Putin issue, what might he do after Ukraine? If he marches towards a Nato country (which I doubt he'd be foolish to contemplate), then Trump could find himself involved in a much bigger war. And there's China and Taiwan. If Beijing invades Taiwan, will Trump send in the carriers? So, the lesson is, however much you want to be a peacemaker and not get the US further involved in wars of any kind, the US is and has always to be a global force because it is a military and economic superpower. So, I fear the attacks on Iran will definitely not be the last time the US has to go to war under this administration or any future administration.

So much confusion over the US bombing of Iran

Who is right about the US bombing of Iran nuke plants? The leaking of the initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the US bombing in Iran last week sent all the wrong messages around Washington. President Donald Trump had declared the bombings by B-2 stealth bombers had “obliterated” Iran’s three main nuclear sites. But the leaked DIA report rejected the president’s triumphant announcement. It dealt a political blow to the president and provoked a huge debate about whether the bombings had achieved the objective which was to destroy Iran’s ability to develop and build a nuclear bomb. Whether the leaker acted deliberately to undermine the president’s case is not yet clear. But the reality is that the DIA assessment was far too premature to give the true picture of what level of destruction those bombs achieved. Every expert in this field has said that it takes weeks for a proper assessment to be made; and it’s not just a question of looking at satellite images. A full assessment has to take into account a whole range of other sources – for example, on-the -ground human intelligence and electronic eavesdropping of Iranian government communications. Even then, it won’t be possible to be absolutely sure of the damage unless international inspectors are allowed down to the underground bunkers and see for themselves. The Iranian regime has, meanwhile, acknowledged that the nuclear sites have been damaged. The problem for the Trump administration is that the leak of the DIA assessment has created doubt, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei exploited that confusion by claiming the US had failed to destroy the country’s nuclear programme. The media has played a significant part in fomenting doubt about the bomb attacks, but that was inevitable and unavoidable after CNN first received the leaked DIA report. The report was a genuine document and the media seized on it. To try and downgrade the DIA assessment, Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave an incredibly detailed account of the bombings by seven B-2 stealth bombers which painted a very different picture. It appeared to be an immaculately well-planned operation, with twelve of the Pentagon’s heaviest and largest bombs dropped one after the other through a ventilation shaft at the main underground site at Fordo, south of Tehran. Assuming they all detonated, that must have caused immense damage to the facilities more than 2,000ft feet below. If that turns out to be the case, then the DIA report was basically not just premature but wrong. No wonder the FBI has been called in to investigate who leaked the document. The lesson learned from last week is that in this crazy social media world, everything becomes political. What was intended to be a triumph for Trump and for the Pentagon turned into a political battle, with the media and Trump critics seizing on the DIA assessment to cast doubt on the US military’s ability to damage, let alone, obliterate Iran’s nuclear sites.

Iran's Supreme Leader claims victory over America!!

It's extraordinary how one man's victory is another man's defeat or the other way around. Seven US B-2 Spirit strategic bombers armed with 14 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs flew into Iran with ease and total immunity and bombed three of their nuclear plants and flew home again unscathed, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, emerges from his own secret bunker and pronounces victory over the Americans. Perhaps he hasn't had time to speak to his intelligence people or go on a trip to Fordo, Natanz or Isfahan, the three attacked sites. But to declare victory would seem to be somewhat bizarre. Ok, the Iranians were obviously smart because it looks like they removed the 400 kilos of 60 per cent-enriched uranium, plus some key enrichment equipment before the B-2s arrived. But their programme to build a bomb which the ayatollah still denies, has clearly been set back by a considerable time whatever the different US intelligence agancies are saying. Obviously Khamenei feels he has to rouse his people to support him against the US but will the average Iranian actually believe their master when he declares victory? The reality is that if he and his regime try to restart their clandestine bombmaking programme, the Israeli air force will be back, and probably the B-2s as well, although the US will have to get on fast with producing more Massive Ordnance Penetrators, having used up possibly more than half of the existing stock. Judging by Khamenei's statement today, Iran will always remain a threat while he is in charge.

Was Iran's uranium-enrichment plant "obliterated"?

Donald Trump chose the word "obliterated" when he announced the successful hits by 30,000lb bombs onto Iran's nuclear facility underground at Fordo. Ever since there have been doubts cast on how much damage was actually done. The US Defence Intelligence Agency which I guuess will now be abolished, reported (and it was leaked of course) that only enough damage was done to put back Iran's nuke programme by a few months. Trump is furious and has stuck to his favourite adjective, "obliterated". I hope for the sake of the world that Trump is right and the DIA is wrong or at least premature with its assessment. But if the DIA turns out to be right, then it means the dropping of FOURTEEN Massive Ordnance Penetraors(MOPs) by seven B-2 staelth bombers didn't do the trick after all. To be honest, there was always doubt about whether these mighty bombs could actually reach the parts that had to be reached, way way down under a mountain. Anyway, Iran smartly removed key equipment as well as the 400 kilos of 60 per cent-enriched uranium from Fordo and from Natanz, another nuke facility hit by MOPs. General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that battle-damage assessment still has to be completed. But Trump has made up his mmind that the Iranian sites have been obliterated. So someone must have told him that this was the case, or was that someone too scared to tell him the truth. Even Marco Rubio, the secretary of state who has been totally loyal to his master so far, has suggested the bombing caused severe damage but didn't use the word "obliterated". The battle-damage assessment is going to be pretty tricky if it's seen through the eyes of spy satellites because the images, while showing big craters in the mountain, don't show us the inside of the plants down below. This is not going to be resolved one way or the other in a matter of days but it certainly hasn't helped Trump's case that someone inside the DIA leaked the initial findings to the media. But then this is what always happens in the US.

Trump curses Israel and Iran for violating his ceasefire

The overnight announcement by Donald Trump of an agreement by both Israel and Iran to stop attacking each other was a rabbit-out-of-the-hat surprise. It didn't last long, but then Trump with some choice expletives told Israel to turn its bombers back and Tehran to stop firing missiles. When both sides are so fired up, perhaps it's to be expected that a few wild shots will be launched as the tempo starts to fall. Trump's intention was to fly off from Washington to The Hague in The Netherlands for the two-day Nato summit with peace in his pocket. As he boarded Air Force One he must have been looking forward to the cries of praise and congratulations from alliance leaders. But all will depend on whether the ceasefire holds. I would have thought Israel feels it still has much to do to stop the nuclear threat from Iran. Fordow, the deeply buried uranium-enrichment facility, is not "obliterated" as Trump claimed. It's badly damaged but could Tehran in the future rebuild it and get back to enriching uranium, this time to weapons-grade, 90 per cent, level? They have removed the 400 kilos of 60 per cent enriched-uranium in steel caskets to a secret site and nobody seems to know where it is. No doubt Mossad will find it and then we'll see what happens, as Trump likes to say. While Trump is distracted in The Hague, I fear Israel and Iran will continue to breach the "deal", each accusing the other of being the first to do so.