The West should tighten the screws on Iran

Times

5 hours ago

Smoke billows from central Tehran on a third day of exchanging missile fire with Israel
ATTA KENARE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
I ran's extremist, repressive and paranoid regime faces its greatest challenge since the overthrow of the Shah almost half a century ago. Israel has already inflicted devastating blows on Iran's desperate attempts to manufacture nuclear weapons. With precision targeting, comprehensive intelligence and a humiliating ability to use military ­facilities clandestinely set up inside the country, Israel has destroyed Iran's malign intention to string along international efforts to limit its nuclear research — to deceive not only President Trump and atomic weapons inspectors but all those urging a negotiated deal. Iran came within weeks of success: Israel will now continue its attacks until not only the underground bunkers are destroyed but so too are the morale and credibility of the Islamists holding Iran in thrall.
It is the Iranian people who have suffered: not only from the inevitable casualties of war but from years of repression, mismanagement, penury and state-sponsored misogyny. But hopes of promoting regime change may be misplaced. Military attacks tend to rally people around the authorities, however despised.
Nevertheless, Ayatollah Khamenei's defiance may be as hollow as it is blind. He has miscalculated badly. He had a last chance to save lives and face with Mr Trump's ­proposal for a new deal. But his sole aim is to ­preserve his power and the rule of Islamism. He knew any concession limiting his chance to make a bomb would wreck Iran's fast-fading power and influence and endanger the Islamists' domestic stranglehold. Already, the outposts are gone: Hezbollah and Hamas have been decapitated, the Assad regime has fled Syria and the Houthis are almost a spent force in distant Yemen.
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The danger of escalation remains, however. It will not come from Iran's Arab neighbours, which quietly share hopes for an end to the Islamic republic and have so far shown commendable pragmatism in their response. It will come from a desperate Iranian attempt at terrorist revenge. Islamists across the West and those suborned to sow death among civilians will be primed to attack towns, people and prestige targets. Leaders meeting today at the G7 summit should understand that 'de-escalation' does not mean futile calls for restraint and emollient words for Tehran. It means a readiness to confront the likely Russian support for Iran, the stepping up of security across the West and active protection for Jews worldwide.
Israel has already paid a price for going to war. Civilians have been killed by Iranian missiles ­getting through the Iron Dome defences: more may die. Binyamin Netanyahu, with the firm backing of hardliners in his cabinet, believes this is a price worth paying to end years of calls by Iran for the destruction of the Zionist state. He has also calculated that Mr Trump will stand by Israel, America's ally, militarily and politically, and that the focus will shift from the growing rift with Washington and Europe over Gaza.
This puts Sir Keir Starmer on the spot. He wants to play the even-handed statesman, as much to promote a ceasefire in Gaza as to appease angry Muslim voters. But Britain carries no weight at all in Israel. Its support for the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Mr Netanyahu, its ­embargo of some arms for Israel and the recent sanctioning of two Israeli cabinet ministers have provoked only a contemptuous response from the Netanyahu cabinet. That, in turn, does not help Sir Keir to influence the course taken by the only ally who matters to Israel: Mr Trump.
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Talk of moral equivalence between Iran and Israel is ill-judged. The intention to make and probably use a nuclear bomb is a threat not only to the region but to world peace. Israel knows it must avoid civilian casualties; Iran wants maximum ­destruction rained down. The G7 needs a robust response. Nothing should appease Tehran.