US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding

This conflict must be considered a clear strategic failure for the United States and it is down entirely to one man; Donald Trump. He failed to build a regional coalition in advance, kept threatening things he was never going to deliver and has now simply gotten bored.

I am doubtful this agreement holds in the long-term, especially if Israel and Hezbollah keep trading attacks.

Monsters unleashed - some thoughts on the Iran situation

 This post is going to cover my thoughts on the war in the Middle East as it enters its second month.

• Just because you contain a monster, it doesn't mean that the monster isn't still there. Or to use another metaphor, hornets still go out and sting, which Iran has been doing for decades under the three Ayatollahs. Also, what is the difference between containment and appeasement? Does it depend on which side is doing it?
• For Israel, Iran getting a nuclear bomb is an existential threat. It would likely result in a situation where they would feel they have no alternative but strike first and international opinion can do go do one. In 1996, the ICJ famously split 7-7 on the legality of using nukes if state survival was at stake, that part only being carried by the President's deciding vote.
• Declaring that the desire was to overthrow the Islamic regime was a stupid move - it set up an unrealistic winning condition.
• Donald Trump lies so often that he won't be believed even when he is telling the truth. Aesop had a few things to say about that.
• Iran is playing a similar game to Germany in both World Wars - unable to defeat the US militarily, it hopes to cause the global economy so much pain that it gives up. This is a move that risk the GCC going from defence to offence.
• The US armed forces, especially the navy, have been badly run down by underfunding and the twenty-five years of the war on terror. This is now showing in a major way.
• Reopening the Straits of Hormuz will require diplomacy or armed force likely to produce a level of US casualties that would cause massive damage to the Republicans politically. Vietnam ultimately, bar the one-term Carter presidency, kept the Democrats out of power for over two decades and their 1992 victory wasn't exactly convincing either.
• A popular uprising will not happen during the bombing campaign. It might later, but these things are notoriously difficult to predict.
• So much for a "short, victorious war".

The end of the Islamic regime in Iran?

It appears for the second time this year that the United States has managed to remove a foreign leader they didn't like from power, with  Ayatollah Khamenei possibly killed in the large-scale US and Israeli attack on Iran.

This was an attack of choice with no Congressional backing, let alone one from the United Nations. The Trump administration is riding roughshod over international law, the US Constitution and common decency.

But not many will be mourning the death of Ali Khamenei, leader of one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, a literal inspiration for Gilead from The Handmaid's Tale. That is probably why there will be no real consequences for the US action here - the EU itself believed Iran was a threat in multiple ways.

It has not been a good century for those opposed to the United States. Bin Laden is lying at the bottom of the ocean. Saddam Hussein died the death of a common criminal. Gadaffi was killed by his own people. Maduro is in a prison cell. Assad is in exile.

But US action has unleashed horrific forces in many of the countries it has targeted. Improvements have occurred only after a massive wave of chaos and not always then. Refugees coming from Libya are probably a major cause of the rise of the far-right in Europe.

So, Iran has become the next 'victim' - and one can only pray a better government emerges there.

Israel vs. Iran

It's been rather a long-time coming. I blogged out a playthrough of a game on this scenario that came out in 2010 and I ran an award-winning RP that had it happen in 2015.

In any event, the Israelis have decided that the best way to deal with someone you feel wants to kill you is to kill them first, hence they have launched this massive attack on Iran.

Things though are very different than they were in 2015. Syria is no longer under the reign of Assad. Saudi Arabia was on the brink of normalising relations with Israel before October 7 happened. Hezbollah and Hamas are a shadow of their former selves. While Israel's missile defence system is blunting Houthi attacks. They already damaged a lot of the Iranian air defence capability last year during their previous round.

Iran's options are now limited to trying to wreak havoc on the Straits of Hormuz, something the US and GCC will not stand for, even if Donald Trump is not really keen on major foreign wars - he's more a fan of beating on brown-skinned immigrants who aren't actually doing any real harm.

I feel sorry for the Iranian civilians who are likely to get caught this by virtue of being in the wrong place at the wrong time - or related to the wrong people. Also the conscripts who will be killed as a result of this.

Perhaps this could have been avoided, but Netanyahu wants his grand victory. 

Let's hope something better emerges out of all this.

Iran and Syria

Hassan Rouhani's election, on the first ballot, as the new President of Iran, is a small sign of hope in the firecracker environment of the Middle East. He appears to be welcome to proper negotiations with the West and reforming the system - one only hopes the clerics actually allow him to improve that country.

Syria is a situation where none of the options available are particularly palatable. Certainly the status quo, with over 93,000 dead, likely use of chemical weapons and refugees in the hundreds of thousands, cannot be allowed to continue. They are our fellow human beings and we have a duty to help end suffering whether it may be.

Arming the rebels runs the risk of weapons getting into the hands of al-Qaeda supporting groups, whereas a limited no-fly zone must entail the destruction of Syrian bases; this is not Libya's antiqued air defence system by any means. F-22s and B-2s will have a big part to play in this; the West may lose aircraft.

If we are going to go into Syria - and we need to decide if that is the best solution to stop this war - we need a proper plan with clear objectives.

Assad's use of WMDs voids him of any support in my view, but I am not sure if we should back the rebels. All I know is I want this to stop and the land where St Paul met The Risen Christ to be peaceful again.

Iran, nuclear weapons and an Israeli strike

There is no direct evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, but there is a lot of indirect evidence:

• The construction of ballistic missiles that are useless for anything bar attacking cities and employing WMDs
• Enriching uranium far beyond the levels needed for a civilian nuclear programme.
• Building underground nuclear facilities
• Generally unpleasant rhetoric towards a state that is in no position to attack it directly and has never done so.
• Support of terrorism against said state
• Refusal of a perfectly decent offer for enrichment outside the country.

There's generally no smoke without fire and the UN is right to order Iran to stop enrichment until safeguards are in place. None of us want a regime like that with nuclear weapons. If they were to use them against Israel (it would only take two or three nukes getting through Israeli missile defences to effectively destroy that country), the consequences would be devastating for Iran as well - but you bet the leadership won't be taking any of them.

That said, a unilateral Israeli strike could cause serious consequences of their own.

As you may or may not be aware, I am currently running an RP revolving around the consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran. While I have made some slight tweaks to the scenario for gaming purposes and allowing for the 2015 setting, the scenario is based on real and projected capabilities of both sides.

So here are some of my thoughts on what might happen:

• An Israeli strike might not destroy all the facilities, but hitting the right ones could slow the regime down considerably.
• There is extremely little Iran can do to stop an Israeli strike from succeeding with its air defences.
• A strike may well eliminate any support for the reform movement in Iran, but that movement seems, sadly, to have largely stalled. I may be wrong on this and I'm sure Jams can help here.
• Any attempt by Iran to mine the Straits of Hormuz not only gets the US involved, it gets Oman, the UAE and the GCC involved.
• Iran cannot close the Straits long-term - any attempt to do so will result in the loss of the bulk of its naval and air forces.
• The best Iran can hope for is a few symbolic losses of Western assets, say a destroyer or two.
• Iran's ballistic missiles at the moment will not do serious long-term damage to a nation used to rocket attack. Witness the lack of impact that the V2s had on Britain - and Iran has less missiles.
• In fact, Iran poses no threat to the continued existence of Israel without nukes.
• While a war may drive Iran to develop a nuclear weapon - it will never be allowed to actually develop one by the United States and other Western powers. A full-scale invasion might well follow.
• The economic damage of Iranian strikes against the GCC would be considerable, particularly in terms of oil prices.
• Israel will need to present very strong evidence of an Iranian nuclear programme to win over a global public opinion that is hostile to it.

I don't want a war with Iran, but I don't want an Iranian bomb. What is needed is for both sides to come to the table and talk. The US and Israel should make statements that an attack will not take place unless clear red-lines are crossed - such as actual moves towards constructing a nuclear device.

Otherwise, either way, a lot of people are going to die.

Press TV loses UK licence

Good riddance.

An Infinite Supply of Sidewinders: Battlefield 3 thoughts

I've been playing Battlefield 3 lately on the PS3, mixing between the single-player story and the more enjoyable multi-player.

This is not to say that the SP game isn't interesting, but after the superlative Half-Life 2, I've seen better. One particular area of comment is the fourth mission, "Going Hunting".

Essentially a rail-shooter, you play a female F/A-18 WSO who has to shoot down Iranian Fulcrums (not "Flankers" as IGN says - no tail booms), take out radar sites and mark targets for JDAMs. While enjoyable, having an infinite supply of AIM-9Xs to hand does damage the realism some what.

Although not as much as getting from the Persian Gulf to Tehran in under ten minutes...

Anyway, I'm glad to see Glenn Morshower (Agent Aaron Pierce from 24) in both voice and face form as one of the cut-scene people.

Press TV found by Ofcom to have breached fairness rules

Pages 30-40. You'll need to skip past the porn stuff.

Very interesting.

The War in 2012

This mail-based wargame that I'm involved in is looking for more players.

It's a bit slow, but still enjoyable.

More repression in Iran

Critical director arrested

I think that time is running out for the regime one way or another. However, every day that regime attacks its own people and destabilises the Middle East is one day too many.

Iranian protests

Just a thought: have you ever seen a pro-government rally in a democracy?

Revolution or war

The excellent Jams at The Poor Mouth (see my sidebar) continues with his commentary on the Iranian protests, which the regime is going to increasing lengths to try and suppress- but not succeeding.

It's clear that 2010 will be a significant year for Iran. If the regime is not overthrown and replaced by a less belligerent administration, Israel, the likely target for any nuclear weapons produced by Iran, will launch an airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

If that happens, I don't know whether the regime will be strengthened or not. The populace might well rally around the government and democratic ambitions will be frustrated further.

I hope we don't have to find out.

Obama and Missile Defence

Obama's announcement cancelling the "third site" in Central Europe today is not an end to missile defence by any means, contrary to how many right-wing sources are reporting this.

He's just moving to another method, namely AEGIS and the SM-3.

I'm actually a supporter of missile defence. I'd rather have protection than deterrence, with all that entails.

Iran

I have little to say that Jams hasn't already said.

I look forward to the day these people are put on trial.

Simultaneous Happiness And Worry...

Iran has launched a satellite.

While this is a great achievement for any country, it also means they can build an ICBM...

The Iranian hostage situation

I suppose this has been covered in some depth in other blogs, so let me add some points of my own.

Firstly, it's going to be pretty much impossible to prove one way or the other where the British boat in question actually was. Maps and evidence can be faked and I don't think the Americans had a spy satellite in the right place at the right time.

Secondly, either the British have done something very stupid or the Iranians have. I'd personally favour the Iranians.

Thirdly, does anyone think that the British military personnel have been tortured or threatened with torture?

Comments are welcome.

Five Minutes to Midnight...

The Doomsday Clock has moved for the first time in four years.

It now stands at 11.55pm.

This is obviously a bad thing. It's why we need action on climate change and nuclear weapons.