Iran

Sunday

Freddy Gray

Why is Vance silent on Iran?

Twenty eight hours or so into the new war against Iran, and America’s Vice President J D Vance has yet to declare his support in public. His social media account on X, which is normally so lively, has been conspicuously silent for the last two days.  He seems keen to position himself apart from the administration’s more ardent hawks when it comes to the Middle East It’s likely that will all change today and Vance, as he did after the Venezuela operation, will take to the airwaves for the big Sunday news shows in order to once again repeat that administration’s line that Donald Trump, the ultimate decider, has boldly done what no other US president would do, and that the evil Iranian regime could never be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction. But for now, nadda.

Jonathan Sacerdoti

How Israel killed Khamenei

From our UK edition

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, was presented with irrefutable evidence yesterday, including footage, confirming the death of Iran’s so-called ‘Supreme Leader’: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was killed in a targeted Israeli airstrike on his compound in Tehran, marking a pivotal blow to the Islamic republic regime. Initially Netanyahu only hinted at the fact that he was dead, but as the evening progressed more and more sources confirmed it until President Donald Trump eventually took to Truth Social to declare ‘Khamenei, one of the most evil people in history, is dead.

Saturday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is this Trump’s Sarajevo moment?

Here we go again. Switch out Saddam Hussein for the Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmed Chalabi for Reza Pahlavi and you have a fresh war for regime change in the Middle East, this time with Israel as America’s sidekick. With Operation Epic Fury, the American and Israeli bombing of Iran and push for regime change, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” runs the risk not only of triggering wider upheaval in the Middle East, but also globally. Is this a new Sarajevo moment? With Trump’s own generals having warned him that attacking Iran could be a debacle, he may have torched his own presidency Unlike George W. Bush in 2003, who worked to bolster domestic and international support for attacking Iraq, Donald Trump has disdained the slightest effort to justify his war publicly.

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Freddy Gray

Trump launches a remote-control regime-change war on Iran

"We’re going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground," said Donald Trump, as he stood at the lectern in his white USA cap and announced the launch of a "massive and ongoing" military operation against Iran.  "It will be totally, again, obliterated." He had to say "again" because he has insisted over and over that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been "utterly obliterated" last summer, after Operation Midnight Hammer.  But the objective of these latest midnight or very early morning strikes, conducted again by US and Israeli forces working together, is already far broader than the wiping out of weapons of mass destruction – whether that be uranium enrichment sites or Iran's ballistic missile capabilities.

Thursday

Jason M. Brodsky

Iran is ready for war – is America?

In 2001, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met privately with Spain’s then-prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. Aznar recounted how Khamenei dubbed Israel a "cancer condemned to disappear" and said that an open confrontation with Israel and the United States was inevitable. Iran, the Supreme Leader insisted, would prevail. Fast forward to 2026, and the war that Khamenei prophesied is getting closer by the day. The Islamic Republic is already operating under the assumption of a US military operation For decades, durable diplomacy between America and Iran has failed because of the ideological nature of the Islamic Republic. It makes its decisions based on a mix of ideology and a desire for self-preservation.

Thursday

Spectator Editorial

Trump’s worrying appetite for war

As The Spectator goes to press, a great fleet of American war machines is whirring through the skies toward the Middle East. More than 50 fighter jets, plus stealth bombers and support aircraft, are joining what Donald Trump called an “armada” of US naval forces in the Arabian seas. The White House continues to say that it is pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran. It’s possible that this latest military escalation is another of President Trump’s elaborate bluffs, designed to pressure the Iranian regime into accepting American and Israeli demands. But the President has been unusually mute about the situation on Truth Social.

war

Wednesday

Charles Moore

Does Sadiq Khan approve of colonising?

From our UK edition

How to report Iran? It is a huge story. Perhaps as many as 30,000 people were recently murdered there by the tottering regime, but it won’t let western media in. The BBC’s solution is a deal: their correspondent can enter and report, but the report cannot appear on their Persian service. This agreement is rightly explained on air, unlike the BBC’s iniquitous deal with Hamas over Gaza. Do the terms of the deal benefit journalism, however? We are always told that BBC foreign language services are the lifeblood of truth for citizens of dictatorships. Why are Farsi speakers to be deprived of this? Also, what do we learn from Lyse Doucet walking the Tehran streets in a headscarf? (Is it compulsory or voluntary? Either way, she should explain.

Friday

Daniel DePetris

US troops finally leave Syria

In December 2018, to the shock of pretty much everybody in the US national security establishment at the time, President Donald Trump publicly ordered the withdrawal of all US troops from Syria. The announcement caused a panic within the Defense Department, State Department and National Security Council, whose officials teamed up to dissuade Trump from going through with it. A similar story unfolded ten months later, in October 2019. Again, the bureaucracy pushed back; in October 2019, the House went so far as to pass a resolution opposing a US withdrawal, with senior Republican lawmakers signing onto the measure. Fast-forward more than six years later, and the US troop withdrawal Trump floated about during his first term is finally coming to fruition in his second.

Syria

Thursday

Freddy Gray

Will Trump ‘totally obliterate’ Iran’s nuclear program – again?

Donald Trump spent much of the second half of last year boasting about the total and utter success of his military strikes on Iran. “As you know,” he said in August, “we took out the nuclear capability of Iran, and to use the term that people try to dispute without any knowledge, it was obliterated.” Iran’s nuclear program, he assured the world, had been set back by “decades.” Yet yesterday, just six months on, there he was again – meeting Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu once more to discuss the urgent need to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Tuesday

Daniel Thorpe

Why Turkey wants to help Iran

The Iranian regime remains firmly in the crosshairs of American bombers. As President Trump mulls whether to strike, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has personally offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington. At the same time, Turkish authorities have tightened their grip on exiled Iranian opposition figures. Turkey’s sudden support for Iran is not born of friendship. Over the past two decades, the two countries have repeatedly found themselves on opposing sides. In the Syrian civil war, Iran sent Shi’a proxies to prop up the dictator Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey armed and trained Sunni rebel groups. Ankara’s push for dialogue is driven by a fear of regional destabilization.

erdoğan turkey

Monday

Daniel Thorpe

Why Erdogan wants to help Iran

The Iranian regime remains firmly in the crosshairs of American bombers. As President Trump mulls whether to strike, Turkey is using every available channel to halt a military intervention. President Erdogan has personally offered to mediate between Tehran and Washington. At the same time, Turkish authorities have tightened their grip on exiled Iranian opposition figures. Turkey’s sudden support for Iran is not born of friendship. Over the past two decades, the two countries have repeatedly found themselves on opposing sides. In the Syrian civil war, Iran sent Shi’a proxies to prop up the dictator Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey armed and trained Sunni rebel groups. Ankara’s push for dialogue is driven by a fear of regional destabilisation.

Wednesday

Daniel DePetris

Iran is out of good options

Over the last week, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, additional F-15 fighter planes and naval vessels carrying sea-launched cruise missiles have been making their way to the Middle East in what can only be described as a bid by President Trump to squeeze Iran into submission. In case anybody doubted this is what Trump was after, he took to Truth Social early in the morning to send the Iranians a message: give me what I want or face bombing the likes of which you’ve never seen. "A massive Armada is heading to Iran. It is moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” Trump wrote. "Hopefully Iran will quickly “Come to the Table” and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties.”What deal is Trump referring to?

Iran
Douglas Murray

The censors are winning

They say you should never meet your heroes, a rule that is not always correct. But I did have a salutary session some years ago when a friend in New York asked me if I wanted to meet a comedian I really do admire. I had been looking forward to the meeting, but unfortunately it took place during the summer of 2020. If you remember those far-distant days, this was a time when America was obsessing over the story of alleged disproportionate police violence against black Americans. One of the cases was that of a woman named Breonna Taylor. Although the case for the police’s actions and the victim’s innocence revolved around a number of issues, the main one was whether officers should have shot when they did.

Tuesday

Cockburn

Playing ball with Team Trump

The State Department has a “secret playbook for using sports to advance Trump’s agenda,” according to Politico. Foggy Bottom has a tough assignment ahead. Witness the opening ceremonies of Sunday’s NBA game in London between the Memphis Grizzlies and Orlando Magic, the first NBA game in the UK in six years. As Vanessa Williams sang the National Anthem, someone shouted “Leave Greenland alone,” which the arena cheered. Cockburn doesn’t think Williams is much of a threat to Greenland. President Trump’s appearance last night at the College Football Championship – along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ivanka and Jared, Kai Trump and Steve Witkoff – went without a hitch.

Monday

Mickey Down

Mickey Down, Charlie Gammell, Sean Thomas & Douglas Murray

From our UK edition

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Mickey Down, co-creator of Industry, reads his diary for the week; Charlie Gammell argues that US intervention could push Iran into civil war and terrorism – warning that there are more possibilities than just revolution or regime survival; false dichotomy at the heart of; Sean Thomas bemoans the bittersweet liberation from his libido; and, Douglas Murray believes Britain has a growing obsession with race. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Cockburn

Won’t somebody think of the freezing cold press corps?

Journos on ice How hot is the White House briefing room? Pretty scorching if you’re Niall Stanage, the Hill reporter who was drawn into a back-and-forth with press secretary Karoline Leavitt over ICE’s conduct. Leavitt asked for Stanage’s opinion on why Renee Good was shot, he gave it… and she branded him a “biased reporter with a left-wing opinion.” “You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat, you’re pretending like you’re a journalist but you’re a left-wing activist,” Leavitt continued, in a moment that was rapidly clipped for Team Trump’s social media and posted by a flurry of White House staff. The temperature is considerably lower for most other journalists, however.

Tim Shipman

Iran’s useful idiots, Gordon Brown’s second term & the Right’s race obsession

From our UK edition

43 min listen

As the world watches events in Iran, and wonders whether the US will intervene, the Spectator’s cover this week examines 'British complicity in Tehran’s terror’. When thinking about what could happen next in the crisis, there is a false dichotomy presented between regime survival and revolution; the reality is more complicated, though there is no doubt that this is the biggest threat to the theocratic regime in decades.  For this week’s Edition, host Lara Prendergast is joined by political editor Tim Shipman, columnist Rachel Johnson and features editor – and Edition co-host – William Moore. They commend the bravery of Iran’s protestors but criticise the ‘inept, naive and wrong’ response of the Foreign Office.

Damian Thompson

Iran: why theocracies survive – with Peter Frankopan

From our UK edition

25 min listen

In the 21st century, the theocratic nature of the Iranian regime – ruled by senior Shia clerics – appears to be a rarity. The constitutional role of religion is perhaps matched only by the Vatican City and Afghanistan, though these vary in terms of autocracy – as evidenced by the brutal suppression of protests across Iran in the past few weeks. The regime, installed following the 1979 revolution and led first by Ayatollah Khomeini and now Ayatollah Khameini, has proven remarkably resilient; how has it survived so long?

Thursday

Roger Kimball

Why can’t Democrats speak frankly about Iran?

The manicured grounds of Harvard University are tranquil. Ditto the expensive quads of Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford. All across the fruited plain, the self-denominated paragons of virtue who just yesterday sported “Free Palestine” buttons and joined in “No Kings” rallies are greeting today’s greatest enormity – the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens by their insane Islamicist government – with the repetition of that hit by Simon and Garfunkel: "The Sounds of Silence." Or, as the headline of a story in National Review put it: "Iranian Civilians Are Being Massacred to the Sound of Progressive Silence." Accurate numbers are hard to come by since the murderous Islamic regime in Iran has shut down public access to the internet.

iranians
ayatollahs
Charlie Gammell

The rule of the Ayatollahs is broken. What happens now?

"Help is on the way," promised Donald Trump to the people of Iran defying the Islamic Republic. In the same social media post, the President, characteristically light on detail, also urged Iranian protesters to take over the institutions of the Islamic Republic (presumably by force) and to keep a note of the names and numbers of their oppressors for retribution’s sake. Whatever these words presage – be it air strikes on Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij facilities, or cyberattacks on Iran’s intelligence agencies, to blind the regime as the regime has blinded protesters by shutting down the internet – it remains to be seen if such an intervention will tip the balance in favor of the regime, the protesters, or simply chaos.