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🧵1/12. We have a ceasefire in Iran. Both sides claim ‘victory’’, point-based peace plans circulate. In reality nothing has been formally agreed. The picture remains contested. So what, amid the noise, can we reasonably assess?
2/12 At the narrow, tactical level, this has been an astonishingly successful campaign based around deep intelligence penetration and the systematic degradation of Iran’s security and terror apparatus – both foreign and domestic. I can think of no known modern parallel.
3/12 But it was paired with volatile messaging and strategic confusion. In the various conversations I've had with security sources none could give me a clear answer as to whether was a single, clear plan for an Iranian closure of Hormuz, from which I infer there probably wasn’t
4/12 Then there is the war’s stated goals Trump said from the outset that the aim was regime change. And in so doing he handed the Iranians a gift: every day they survived, they (correctly) claimed to be winning – and Western public discourse shifted in their favour.
5/12 In the end, a war is assessed not on how much damage you inflict on your enemy but whether you achieve your stated objectives. Trump’s was regime change. This means that, as of now, this war is a clear strategic defeat for the US/Israel.
6/12 Regime change was always unworkable in the short term. As I have written/said until I’m blue in the face, until Iran has a proper opposition with a *leader* (not the Crown Prince who's incapable of running a parent-teacher meeting let alone Iran) any regime change would merely be the transfer of power *within* the regime. And so it has proved.
7/12 Had Trump said the goal was to degrade Iran’s leadership and terror infrastructure “like no one has ever seen” (in Trumpian language), he would have been proved right. Had he stopped in week two things might have looked very different. But he didn’t. And so here we are.
8/12 Iran also seems in good position in Hormuz - though I suspect weaker here than many think. The regime depends heavily on oil exports, and Hormuz is its main artery as well as everyone else’s: it can tolerate pain for a time but need it to flow again. Partly why they've agreed to a ceasefire.
9/12 We cannot forget, however, that Iran remains under total comms siege: we cannot assess the extent of the damage nor the feelings of the Iranian people, which I suspect will deepen (one way or another) in the weeks and months to come.
10/12 Which brings me to my **central point**. No matter what any “expert” says, no one can accurately gauge the success of this on the regime’s ability to govern or function until the fighting fully stops. (The Iranian people certainly couldn’t come out onto the streets while Iran was being bombed.)
11/12 The Iranian regime has clearly been severely degraded like never before. Its leadership was decapitated and is utterly penetrated. Security sources tell me of pervasive paranoia and infighting; killings of IRGC soldiers for desertion and refusal to obey orders. Then there is the infrastructure damage and the financial turmoil (Iranian banks were hit, messing with the regime’s ability to pay its people); Iran’s relations with its Gulf neighbours, (some of whom it relied on for sanctions-busting routes) and so on. The real test – and any prospect of regime change – will come in the weeks and months that follow.
12/12 Can the regime still project sufficient authority to oppress its people? Will its people feel emboldened after they see the extent of the regime’s degradation - or will they be even more cowed by its survival? Can it maintain its security forces after so much of its leadership has been wiped out? Can it still repair its relations with its Gulf neighbours? (RN looks unlikely). We will only know in the weeks and months that follow. All else is noise.
13/12 Politically, the fallout is already hugely damaging to the US and Israel + emboldening some of the worst political actors and mouthpieces. Whether that persists will depend on what the post-conflict reality actually looks like. Until then, claims of final or decisive victory or defeat are premature. ENDS