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‘China is estimated to have built up a strategic oil reserve equivalent to one billion barrels, enough to sustain it for 100 days in case of a blockade associated with war in Taiwan, for which it is undoubtedly planning. China has reportedly been investing in the Iranian port of Jask, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.’

Bob Seely | Trump’s Real Iran Strategy

‘Russia is conducting an escalating and violent campaign of sabotage and subversion against European and US targets in Europe led by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).’

Centre for International & Strategic Studies

‘In Islam, it is God and not the people who gives a government legitimacy.’

Karen Armstrong | Islam: A Short History

President Trump’s Intentions

The attacks on Iran by America and Israel, which kicked off on Saturday 26 February 2026, might be considered to have been driven by several factors:

• The threat posed to Israel specifically, and to the Western world generally by the prospect of the Islamic Republic of Iran finalising its decades long development of nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime’s expressly stated objectives are to destroy Israel and to export the Islamic Revolution globally, paving the way for the return of the Mhadi.

• The evidence suggesting that China – a one-party authoritarian state – has the intention and growing capability to reshape the global order in its own image. China’s primary ambition is to supplant the USA as the world’s preeminent superpower, economically and militarily.

• The symbiotic relationship between China and Iran. China buys over 80% of Iran’s crude oil whilst supplying Iran with military and technical support, eg intelligence, cyber-warfare programmes and missile development programmes.

• The symbiotic relationship between Russia and Iran. Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia has offered his ‘unwavering support’ to Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamanei. In January 2025, Russia and Iran signed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty formalising cooperation in energy, defence and trade.

If President Trump’s primary objective was to terminate Iran’s capability to produce a nuclear weapon imminently, which I believe to be the case, then his secondary objectives probably related to mitigating the threat posed by China to the USA; the need to meet, in the long-term, the USA’s voracious demand for oil at 21 million barrels per day (bpd); and, to counter the threat posed to the USA and the West by Islamic extremism. So, here’s a summary of what could really be going on in the Middle East right now. Whilst he might not have articulated them in this way, President Trump’s intentions would appear to be:

• To prevent Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons, thought to have been an imminent prospect, thereby triggering the recent attacks.

• To exploit Iran’s oil resources, directly or indirectly, not only to the benefit of the USA specifically, but also to the benefit of the West generally. Iran is the world’s sixth-largest oil producer and holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves. Incidentally, the USA has recently secured significant operational and financial control over Venezuela’s oil supplies following military action in January 2026.

• To attenuate the threat to the USA posed by China including by, inter alia, the USA gaining a degree of control of Iran’s oil resources to disrupt the flow of Iranian oil to China which fulfils up to 13% (1.46 million bpd) of China’s oil needs.

• To neuter the Iranian regime, the world’s most active state sponsor of Islamic terrorism.

Kill Or Be Killed

Many people and many news channels are now in meltdown about events in the Middle East. Much of the emphasis has been not so much on seeking to understand what’s really going on in the Persian Gulf, but rather has been on levelling ad hominem attacks at President Trump. He is, after all, the man everyone loves to hate.

The Americans and the Israelis, and almost certainly British intelligence too, knew that the Iranian regime was getting perilously close to being capable of annihilating Israel. We could argue over the timing details. Iran’s accumulation of uranium, all 400 kgs of it, enriched to 60% purity, was a dead giveaway, as was reduced nuclear transparency, restricted access to nuclear sites and Iran’s development of an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, the latter thanks to China’s kind support of the regime. These facts all led Israel to believe that Iran’s nuclear capability had to be destroyed tout de suite.

In a situation like this, the aim must be to destroy the other guy before he destroys you. It’s as simple as that. President Trump views Israel as an ally and decided to support Israel in destroying the Iranians’ nuclear capability and the people behind it. That’s why the shooting started, led by Israel. If Iran were to develop a nuclear capability, it would not stop at destroying Israel. America and the West generally are in Iran’s sights and reachable with ICBMs. Any non-Shia Muslim state is also deemed to be fair game for destruction by the Iranian regime which includes Sunni Muslim states like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Turkey, all of whom have been attacked by Iran since the conflict started. The Mahdi is prophesied to return at a time of great turmoil; the more the Iranian regime can do to create such turmoil, the more likely the ultimate uniting of the world under Islam. That’s the medieval way these people think.

Talking of medieval, if you’re not too sure about condemning the Iranian regime, read this article by Allison Pearson describing the execution of 16-year-old Atefeh Sahaaleh. She was executed for being raped repeatedly by a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Atefeh was publicly hanged by the Iranian regime, using a crane, meaning a slow death, as punishment for her ‘crimes against chastity’. Iranian men, including the Judge who reserved for himself the pleasure of slipping the noose around Atefeh’s neck, are now being vapourised by American and Israeli armed forces.

The Threat Posed by Islamic Extremism

For those of you suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, I’m going on record here to say thank goodness Donald Trump is today President of the most powerful free and democratic nation on Earth. You can jump up and down as much as you like about the man, and I accept that he’s an unusual character, to say the least. I’m not a fan of Donald Trump and neither are you I imagine. However, I have two daughters and a granddaughter; Islamic extremism represents the primary threat to their safety and happiness in our country, whether that be from nuclear Armageddon, or from them being suicide-bombed on a trip into town, or decapitated by a machete-wielding martyr on the street, not to mention being attacked by an undocumented immigrant follower of Islam whose attitude to having sex with females is somewhat at odds with our own culture; see, for example, the likes of Hadush Kabatu, Jan Jahanzeb, Israr Niazal, Sohail Amiri and Hassan Abou Hayleh to name but a few. Almost one hundred citizens have been killed in Europe in the name of Islam this past 20 years.

The tentacles of the Iranian Republic reach deep into British society, as intended, shamelessly facilitated by our own political class: our borders are porous, our police operate either in fear or in favour of certain ‘communities’, and soon you and I will be criminalised for daring to criticise the religion of Islam. In the case of the Batley Grammar School teacher who, in 2021, inadvertently offended local Muslims by sharing with pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammed (now the most popular new baby boy’s name in England), like Salman Rushdie, that teacher has been banished into internal exile for the rest of his life. Unthinkable a generation ago in this country.

More recently in the UK, four men were arrested on suspicion of spying on London’s Jews for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Supporters of that regime attacked Iranian dissidents outside an Islamic centre in central London. A mob in Birmingham set fire to the Israeli flag at a vigil for the late Ayatollah Khamenei chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as they went about their business. In Whitehall, yet more Ayatollah mourners gathered yelling, ‘Death to Israel!’

Bizarrely, whilst all this is happening, the Labour government is shaping legislation to criminalise us for criticising such behaviour, and at the same time drafting a job specification for another stupendously well paid public sector role called the ‘Anti-Muslim Hostility Tsar’. So, as the scourge of Islamism threatens our lives, the government proposes to protect Islam’s followers from anything we say about them which they might deem to be offensive. Talk about Kafkaesque.

Elsewhere, American and Israeli armed forces are now risking their lives and doing their level best to protect my family, me and you from Islamic extremism which is coming down the tracks towards us like a steam train. What’s happening today in the Middle East was going to have to happen sooner or later, like it or not. Either that, or we hand a free pass to Islamic extremists. It’s naïve to think that the Iranian regime would ever be open to persuasion about transforming that country into a benign member of the international community; a sort of Middle East nation transformed into an image of Wiltshire. That ain’t ever to going to happen.

Europe’s Defence Capability

The countries of Europe long ago lost the will properly to defend themselves, preferring instead, in the wakes of the Second World War and the Cold War respectively, to create vast welfare dependent societies living comfortably under the defensive umbrella of the American taxpayer. Today in the UK, the combined cost of health and welfare services, plus the sum we pay in interest on our grotesque national debt amounts to seven times the defence budget. Small wonder the UK has been humiliated by recent events in the Middle East. Our armed forces have zero geopolitical significance and are, by and large, impotent in the great scheme of things. As someone who served in the British armed forces for a fifth-of-a-century including in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’, the Falklands Conflict and the Gulf War (1991), it grieves me to watch the conscious trashing of our military capability in favour of welfarism. A welfare state which now funds the lifestyles of 1.3 million immigrants who are on benefits, with that number growing by the day; a welfare state which in 2024/25 spent £4 billion on asylum, border and visa operations; a welfare state which spends almost £6 million per day on housing asylum seekers in hotels. Is it any wonder that we couldn’t rustle up more than one unserviceable Royal Navy ship to support, after the event, the Americans’ attack on the world’s biggest state sponsor of Islamic terrorism? You have to ask where do our politicians’ priorities lie?

Europe has deliberately engineered this situation by permitting and, indeed, encouraging the uncontrolled movement of millions of people from other continents to enter its nation states. Those millions of immigrants include people who would do us harm, for sure. According to the UK’s security services, by far and away the greatest threat to our way of life today comes from Islamist terrorism. The irony is that successive British governments have bent over backwards to brainwash the electorate – gaslighting as it’s known nowadays – into believing that multiculturalism is an all-round good thing and that ‘diversity is our strength’. In fact, diversity and multiculturalism are destroying the British way of life before our very eyes. The tragedy is that we’ve brought this state of affairs upon ourselves through the actions of the people – politicians – who’ve made our laws and governed us for a generation. Talk about a slow national death, just like Atefeh’s strung up on that crane. Professor David Betz argues that our socio-political circumstances are now inching us towards civil war.

International Law

You may disagree with my conclusion that President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu were right to decide that now was the moment to clip the wings of the Iranian regime; however, you’d need a good reason for being comfortable with the continued existence of that regime. With all due respect, I would argue that you’d be in the same camp as those people in this country who’ve been taking to the streets to protest at President Trump’s behaviour and to show their support for the late Ayatollah Khamenei. How else does one justify objecting to the decision taken by Trump and Netanyahu? Please tell me in the comments section below why the Iranian regime should either be left to its own devices, or be persuaded politely to become nice and cuddly, or just to leave us alone; I’m keen to be educated in this respect.

Meantime, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer bangs on about international law whilst reassuring his Muslim voter base – who, incidentally, appear now to have switched their allegiance to the Green Party – that the United Kingdom is having nothing to do with attacking the Iranian regime. Keir Starmer languishes in the luxury belief that negotiating with Iran’s Supreme Leader with a book of international law on the table is the way to go. If only Starmer had got in quicker with a few incisive human rights’ arguments, young Atefeh might not, after all, have been slowly throttled to death for being raped multiple times.

The End Game

What’s the end game here? How will we know when the Americans and Israelis have achieved their objectives in attacking Iran? We know from bitter experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, for example, that trying by force to create countries in our own image – free, democratic and governed by the rule of law – hasn’t worked out too well in those places. If one researches the opinions of those people who spend their lives observing and analysing situations like the situation in Iran now, one discovers that creating other societies in one’s own image, at the end of a gun barrel, is more likely than not to be a futile enterprise.

It’s for the Iranian people and for them alone to decide the future of their country. We in the West – the Americans, the Europeans and, of course, the Israelis – have a single aim in this context: to protect our citizens from Islamic terrorism. No ifs, no buts. We’re not required to shape the future of Iran. The West’s secondary aim is to contain Iran if it shows no signs of changing its national behaviour. In other words, if the Iranian people allow themselves to be governed by Islamic extremists, and that regime poses a threat to the West, then we re-run ‘Operation Epic Fury’. Rinse and repeat. You can perhaps now see why having run down the nation’s armed forces for a generation and more was not the finest way to keep the best interests of British citizens at heart in an increasingly dangerous world. Si vis pacem, para bellum. In similar vein, one learns early in a professional military career, as I did, that the best form of defence is attack. Few politicians know of, still less understand the significance of this military maxim. If you’re threatened to the extent that we are by Islamic extremism, you don’t cower behind tomes of international law; you take the fight to the enemy.

Yes, we should endeavour to engage with the Iranian government, whoever that is, in diplomatic terms. However, the evidence suggests that if Iran is governed, always and forever, by men who see their country’s abiding mission as being to destroy Israel, paving the way for the coming of the 12^th and final Imam and the establishment of a global Islamic kingdom, then our diplomats will have their work cut out.

Complexity Phobia

Some of you reading this post will agree with the arguments I’ve made here; others won’t. There’s a term in psychology known as ‘complexity phobia’. Complexity phobia means having an aversion to recognising incontrovertible evidence and facts if they challenge a more comfortable and comforting narrative. Some of you will be comfortable despising President Trump and recoiling at the prospect of warfare. Despite my best efforts here at setting out objectively the facts and circumstances of the American and Israeli attacks on Iran, you will nonetheless hold an irrational fear of the complexity of it all. It’s more comforting to cling to the status quo ante: hate Donald Trump and ignore the murderous Iranian regime as if they didn’t exist.

There’s another related psychological term at play here too: it’s called ‘affective polarisation’. Affective polarisation is where people don’t just disagree on policy, but they strongly disapprove of the people in the opposite camp. I’ll lay money that some of you reading this post will be thinking that you dislike me intensely for the views I’ve espoused here. My preference, of course, would be to see a cogent, credible counter-argument explaining how the Iranian regime could be persuaded to transform peacefully away from being the world’s greatest state sponsor of Islamic terrorism. However, remember, in Islam, it is God and not the people who gives a government legitimacy.

Finally, I write simply to force myself to investigate a subject, seek out facts, endeavour to make sense of them and then draw conclusions. You could do the same and draw different conclusions. That’s freedom of speech.