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KINSELLA: Why victory in Iran hasn't been achieved yet

Donald Trump predicted four weeks or less -- but he and the intelligence behind the assault were wrong

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Those are the words of U.S. President Donald Trump, two days after Israel and the United States started bombing Iran on February 28. That’s how long he said the war would last.

KINSELLA: Why victory in Iran hasn't been achieved yet Back to video

“Four weeks or less.” As of Monday, 24 days — three weeks and a bit — have passed since Israel and the U.S. launched what they called a “decapitation strike.”

On the very first day of the war, Israel and America scored an impressive victory: They eliminated the monstrous Iranian dictator, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with high-ranking figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), security chief Ali Larijani, and intelligence minister Ismail Khatib. It was a masterful military manoeuvre. Could the war be over before it started?

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“PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” Trump declared at the time on social media. It was time for Iranians to “take back” their country, he said.

Except, they didn’t. They haven’t. Instead, Iranians are (understandably) sheltering from the bombs that are raining down from above. And, as we edge closer to the four-week mark, it is evident that the war is not over. If anything, it has been escalating.

The war happened on bad intelligence

Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases and Arab states — along with Israel — have caused hundreds of millions in damage and scores of civilian deaths. Iran’s drones and missiles, too, have taken out energy infrastructure in places like Qatar, and effectively shut down the vital Strait of Hormuz to marine traffic.

Over the weekend, The New York Times ran a fascinating four-byline piece about how the war happened. Essentially, the Times investigation found, two things persuaded Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to act when they did: Bad intelligence, and widespread hubris.

Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, convinced Netanyahu to go to war. The Mossad chief, David Barnea, predicted riots and rebellion would swiftly follow airstrikes, leading to an inevitable collapse of the Iranian dictatorship. American intelligence agencies, however, had their doubts.

“Three weeks into the war, an Iranian uprising has not yet materialized,” the Times report reads. “American and Israeli intelligence assessments have concluded that the theocratic Iranian government is weakened but intact, and that widespread fear of Iran’s military and police forces has dampened prospects both for nascent rebellion in the country.”

“Instead of imploding from within, Iran’s government has dug in and escalated the conflict, striking blows and counterblows against military bases, cities and ships around the Persian Gulf, and against vulnerable oil and gas installations.”

Netanyahu now implicitly acknowledges as much, noting grimly that “you can’t do revolutions from the air.” It’s all up to the Iranian people, he now says. Privately, the Times reports, the Israeli PM is livid with his intelligence advisors for their miscalculation.

Trump, meanwhile, has gone largely silent on predictions, offering only this word salad on Fox Radio: “I think that’s a very big hurdle. So it’ll happen, but it probably will be maybe not immediately.”

That’s a quote: “It’ll happen, but it probably will be maybe not immediately.” If you can decipher that one, drop us a line.

Iran’s military underestimated

Bad intelligence isn’t the only reason for the war. Iran’s military capacity, clearly, has been greatly underestimated. Ironically, it was the Ukrainians who warned us about this possibility, years ago. In the third year of his four-year war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the United Nations that modern warfare had completely changed — because of drones.

Drones, Zelenskyy noted, cost just US$10,000 or less — while Patriot missiles cost $4 million. And the main source of the drones Russia was using against the Ukrainian people? Iran.

It is estimated Iran is sitting on a stockpile of 80,000 Shahed drones, which — by any reasonable standard — is a massive stockpile. Iran is producing hundreds of new Shaheds every week, and have deployed more than 2,000 of them across the Gulf region.

Iran’s drones don’t need runways or missile launchers. They require only a small rocket booster and can be launched off the back of pickup trucks and off the decks of small boats, and then travel 2,500 kilometres. The Shaheds can carry 50 kilograms of explosives, which is enough to completely destroy a house or a few floors of an apartment building. The Iranians — and the Russians — have perfected deployed the Shaheds in swarms, too, overwhelming Western-style defence systems.

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Bad intelligence and underestimating the enemy’s ability to cause death and destruction: Those are the two main reasons for why victory hasn’t been achieved yet.

Trump can claim — as he did, in a stream-of-consciousness all-caps post on Monday — that there have been “very good and productive conversations” with Iran’s leaders.

But the fact remains: The bad guys still run Iran. And they haven’t given up.

The war isn’t over, yet.

— Kinsella is the author of the forthcoming book The Hidden Hand, about Iran’s information war against Israel and the West.

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