‘WE GOT HIM!’ Donald Trump’s announcement was immediate and emphatic. The operation was ‘one of the most daring Search and Rescue Operations in US History,’ he said. Two American aircrew recovered from deep inside Iran, in separate missions, without a single US casualty. That was the headline. America has not lost control of the ongoing war with Iran.

Iran has offered Trump an olive branch

What we really know about the first Easter

The surprising truth about AI and jobs

Cut through the triumphant tone of the President’s post, however, and there is truth. The Islamic Republic’s only tangible achievement in this incident was the original downing of an American aircraft. But in war, such things happen. Aircraft are tools, they fail, they are lost, they are replaced. The outcome that would have mattered, the capture of an American crew member, never materialised, and that absence outweighs everything else in this episode. America did whatever it took to ensure it stayed on top.

The sequence began on Thursday night, when a US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle went down over southwestern Iran. Both crew members ejected safely. One was recovered within hours. The second, a weapons systems officer, was not. He remained on the ground for more than a day as Iranian forces began closing in. From the moment of ejection, the situation narrowed into a race against........

© The Spectator