Melanie Phillips: Holding our nerve

Those clamouring for the Iran war to end prematurely haven't a clue about the stakes involved

The regime in Tehran believes that driving up the oil price to eye-watering levels will force President Trump to end the war.

Today’s media reports were dominated by speculation that this strategy is working. This is because Trump said yesterday that the war is “very complete, pretty much,” and that it will end “very soon”.

Yet later in the day he also said:

We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough…We could call it a tremendous success right now. Or we could go further. And we’re going to go further.

And he warned that the US would intensify its strikes if Iran continued to threaten oil tankers exiting the Persian Gulf.

So is Trump winding the war down — or ramping it up? Maybe he was suggesting a speedy end to the war merely to get the oil price down again and fast. Who knows?

But if he ends the war prematurely, the regime survives. And if that happens because of the oil price, then America, Britain and the world will be held hostage by Iran repeatedly deploying that oil weapon to make itself invulnerable as it develops its nuclear weapons and creates a ballistic missile system so enormous that no-one will be able to prevent it from pursuing its infernal goal to destroy the west.

For those who hoped that the Iranian regime’s choice of a new Supreme Leader would signal a move towards pragmatism in Tehran and the prospect of a negotiated end to the war, the choice of Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed in the war’s opening moments, has been an unwelcome setback.

The younger Khamenei (from whom nothing has been seen or heard) reportedly has views even more extreme than those of his father, who had designated him his successor. So this looks like a defiant signal of continued intransigence.

But the idea that a negotiated compromise with the regime is even possible, let alone desirable, is yet another example of western myopia and wishful thinking — a luxury not available to those at the sharp end of Tehran’s psychopathic aggression.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author - you can follow her work on her website HERE