US-Iran strikes: Is this another forever war?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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The Pat Kenny Show. With Timber Living Log Cabins. Saturday and Sunday from 10am on Newstalk. Conversation that counts. Last night marked the eighth consecutive night of strikes by the United States against Iran. The latest in the series being dubbed a revenge attack by the United States for the deaths of US service personnel. in Jordan. I'm joined on the line by Paul Rogers, Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. Paul, good morning. Morning, Pat. Is this looking more like a forever war?
It is, to some extent, yes. And I think the problem is that neither side seems to be able to get ahead properly, and neither side is losing. It's almost like Ukraine in another dimension. But that's where we are. And I think the problem for the United States is that They need to, so to speak, bend Iran to their will so that Iran will negotiate fully. Iran doesn't feel the need to do that. The problem, I think, for the Americans is that they failed with Israel in the original plan to change the regime in Tehran. And what they've actually done is actually produce a regime which, if anything, is more hardline than before because it's more dominated by the Revolutionary Guard Corps. And the Guard Corps is prepared to take a lot of punishment or enable Iran to take a lot of punishment while keeping a very…
stronghold on public opinion and as far as Iran is concerned they want to keep this up and they've got several things in their armory so to speak which they've not used yet and the end result is really it's going to be very difficult for the United States particularly I think with what happened as you reported with two American service people killed, at least four more wounded, and one missing. We don't know whether all of these were in the attack in Jordan. We don't know the nature of the attack. But there are indications, only indications at the moment, that it did involve a ballistic missile attack in which two missiles got through and caused explosions. If that's the case, that will cause huge concern in Washington because Americans will have been used state-of-the-art air defenses
And if they are failing to actually intercept some of the Iranian missiles, then they're going to have quite a lot of thinking to do. So overall, it's a real mess. It's very difficult to predict how it will go. But Trump is getting extremely frustrated, as indeed, I suspect, are Peter Hexeth in the Pentagon and others. And that's where we are now.
Now, you mentioned that Iran has some unused weapons at its disposal. What are those weapons?
There are a lot of them.
What triggered the eighth consecutive night of US strikes against Iran?
I mean, the point is the CSIS, which is a big and highly rated think tank in Washington, which does a lot in international security. It reckons that it's got probably about half its supplies of ballistic missiles not yet used. And even on the drone side, it may be even more than that. Moreover, Iran could carry on making the drones in small workshops up and down the country. And there are also strong indications, which weren't confirmed before this current war, that Iran have put a lot of the missile facilities, including anti-ship missiles, underground. And many of those have not been hit by the Americans or the Israelis. Probably they don't even know where they are. It's the problem from the American and Israeli perspective is the Iranians have been preparing this for years, if not decades.
They were ready for this kind of attack at some stage and sufficiently flexible for the Iranians actually to respond in different ways. And they have not responded to everything. I mean, we're tending to forget that this is mainly over whether the Strait of Hormuz is going to be kept open or not.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:13
2
What triggered the eighth consecutive night of US strikes against Iran?
3:13–5:14
3
Is the US-Iran clash turning into a 'forever war' and why?
5:14–8:13
4
Why has regime change in Tehran failed and how has the Revolutionary Guard responded?
8:13–10:27