I’ve spent the weekend thinking about what to write in this note.
Whilst it’s satisfying to have been right on this, it’s devastating that this is now happening.
Airstrikes are indiscriminate. You can roughly control where they land, but both sides are seeing countless civilian casualties and injuries. It’s very easy to sit here and comment from thousands of miles away, but I think it’s important to remember that for millions of people in and around the Middle East, lethal weapons are raining down from the sky around them onto the place that they call home.
I always think that in times like this it’s important to hear from those who have lived through similar experiences. I want to do something personal about the individuals this is affecting another time, but for now let me share this speech from Tony Benn, who lived through the Blitz, during a 1998 Common debate on bombing Iraq. It was a different conflict, but substitute Iraq for Iran and it still works. His oratory also does a much better job of conveying what I’m trying to say than anything written ever could.
It’s two minutes long. Please watch it if you can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7ciGW7h7PI
So where do we go from here?
I was initially hesitant to comment much on the actual conflict, as the fog of war is very real and it’s difficult to immediately verify what’s going on on the ground. No one really knows what’s going to happen from here, and I think you can guesstimate the next 48 hours of the conflict at best. This is still largely the case, but it’s becoming clear that a few things are likely to happen, and I wanted to discuss those and how things might develop from here.
The first is that Trump and Netanyahu have given no indication of a “day after” plan. Whilst Trump is expecting this campaign to continue for four or five weeks, maybe longer, it’s very difficult to say what happens when it finishes. They seem to be hoping for regime change from the air, for which you’d need a mass organisation of the Iranian people to topple the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the wider regime.
That’s not impossible, but I couldn’t tell you how likely that is (and frankly, you should unsubscribe from anyone who tells you they can). There’s little indication of a willingness to commit ground troops right now, like in Iraq, but that’s not to say that regime change via airstrike hasn’t happened before (despite plenty of commentators and politicians saying so). Libya is the most notable example, where NATO airstrikes eventually contributed to the fall of Gaddafi. There were countless celebrations at the time, as we’re seeing for the death of Ayatollah Khamenei now, but what followed was not a grand, new beginning, but the start of a terrible civil war that brought untold devastation to millions.
As I’ve said before, doing something like this without a clear plan for what happens after the regime has been toppled is reckless, and risks throwing the entire Middle East into even more chaos as a power struggle breaks out in Iran, providing a perfect breeding ground for extremist ideologies.
For now, Iranian military capabilities are contained to the Middle East, with the most direct link to the UK coming via our military base on Cyprus (which I’m hearing reports may have just seen another drone attack). It’s also worth remembering the risk of Iranian cyber attacks and lone-wolf attackers closer to home, and we should all be on heightened alert with respect to these.
I have heard some arguments that, if this all works out, it could turn out to be a geopolitical blinder by Trump, as he will have stripped China, who he sees as the great strategic rival to the US, of two very large oil suppliers in Iran and Venezuela. It’s got some legs, but Russia continues to be the largest supplier of oil to China, and has invaded and is currently occupying 20% of a European country. Of course, the US won’t conduct similar operations against Russia, or indeed North Korea for that matter, because they have nuclear weapons. And so, if you’re the leader of a state like Cuba, who’s continually on the wrong end of Trump’s tirades, does it not suddenly becomes very compelling to shell out for a nuclear bomb to keep your regime? Needless to say, nuclear proliferation would be a bad outcome.
But these are all big picture things. For the next couple of days, I expect a lot of the story will be about the impact on gas and oil markets. The IRGC announced earlier this evening that the Strait of Hormuz is now shut, threatening to set fire to any vessel that tries to navigate it, and that they won’t let a single drop of oil leave the region. We’ve been seeing attacks on civilian oil and gas infrastructure over the last day or so, with Qatar closing the world’s largest natural gas fields (remember they provide 20% of the world’s natural gas) and Saudi halting oil refining at the Ras Tanura refinery.
If these continue, the prices of oil and gas will rise, and your gas and electric bills along with it. The US can sustain this shock - they have an emergency stockpile of about 90 days’ worth of oil, which they built up after the 1973-74 oil embargo - but the rest of the world is likely to feel the effects, which may very well trigger a recession. The US could sell some of the reserve to stem some of this, as they did in 2022, but it won’t make up for the closure of Hormuz, which carries 20% of the world’s oil supply. Watch this space.
Watch this space, but how?
There’s lots of great reporting being done on this crisis, and I’ve put the ones I’ve been finding most valuable below, if you want to keep up yourself:
As ever, get in touch with any questions or points you’d like to know more about.
RH