Operation Epic Fury: Trump’s fateful gamble

It's hard to assess the significance of events in real time, said Peter Frankopan in The Independent, but on rare occasions, their historical import is immediately evident. I count three such events in my lifetime: the fall of the Berlin Wall; the 9/11 attacks; and now, the decision by the US and Israel to launch all-out war on Iran.

Escalating conflict

Operation Epic Fury began on Saturday morning with a barrage of air strikes that eliminated the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with many other senior members of the regime. The killings were the product of a sophisticated intelligence campaign, said Mehul Srivastava in the Financial Times. Israel hacked nearly all the traffic cameras in Tehran years ago, and had been closely tracking the comings and goings of the bodyguards and drivers of senior Iranian officials. It also had agents on the ground. The Israeli premier, Benjamin Netanyahu, was reportedly shown a photo of Khamenei's body before Iran had even admitted he'd been killed.

The US and Israel have dropped thousands more bombs on Iran over the days since, destroying military sites and sinking at least 20 naval vessels, one of which was torpedoed by a submarine in the Indian Ocean.

Iran “has not held back” in its response, said The Economist. It has unleashed salvoes of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and nearby states, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. The targets have not just been US military installations (and a UK base in Cyprus), but luxury hotels, airports and energy infrastructure too. Iran has also stemmed the flow of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, by threatening to attack any passing vessels. Although most of Iran's attacks have been fended off, they've triggered a surge in gas and oil prices. And Tehran may escalate its tactics. Strikes on Arab desalination plants, which many states rely on for drinking water, could have “devastating consequences”.

Slim odds

Trump didn't start this, said The Wall Street Journal. He's fighting back against a regime that “has been waging war against the US, Israel and the West for decades”. This carries risks, of course, but it has “the potential to reshape the Middle East for the better and lead to a safer world”.

We should all hope for the fall of Tehran's “despicable” regime, which has just murdered as many as 30,000 people protesting against its rule, said William Hague in The Times. Whether Trump's great gamble will pay off, though, is unclear. The West's recent interventions in the Middle East have all been “followed by chaos, rather than an orderly transition to democracy”.

The odds of success look slim, said Tom Nichols in The Atlantic. It's easy enough to destroy Iran's military assets, but as the US learnt in Iraq and elsewhere, nothing permanent is achieved by “bouncing rubble and piling up bodies”. Trump called on the regime to surrender its weapons “to the people”. How would that work?

Shifting objectives

The problem with Trump's intervention, said Abigail Hauslohner in the FT, is that there's no clear plan behind it. His rationales and aims change constantly. One minute, he's suggesting the mission will last a few days, the next, he's saying it will go on for five weeks; one minute, he calls on Iranians to “seize control of your destiny”, the next, he says he has no interest in nation-building. On Sunday, he said he had picked three “very good choices” among Iran's officials to take over the country. The next day, he told ABC that US-Israel strikes had been “so successful” that the candidates were “all dead”.

Trump needs to work out exactly what it is he's trying to achieve in Iran, agreed David Blair in The Daily Telegraph. By espousing one objective or another “according to his whims”, he's crippling his chances of achieving any of them. It’s not Trump’s style to be consistent, said Andrew Cockburn in The Spectator. But while he can play fast and loose with facts and arguments, he can’t dodge the real-world consequences of this conflict. The ferocity of Iran’s attacks on America’s Gulf allies, and the regime’s determination to keep fighting, have already come as a nasty surprise to him.

The sheer cost of this conflict will also have to be confronted, said Shashank Joshi in The Economist. The economics are “brutal”. Experts estimate that Iran’s missile barrage against UAE will have cost between $177 million and $360 million. In contrast, the UAE will have had to spend between $1.45 billion and $2.28 billion defending against it. Weapon stocks will be an issue for all parties in this conflict, said Joe Barnes in The Daily Telegraph. The Iranian regime will seek to eke it out and wear America down. But the “biggest limiting factor” on Trump’s ambitions may prove to be a domestic political backlash.