Taking stock on the war on Iran
JVL Introduction
In all the fug and obfuscation about the US-Israel war on Iran coming not least from Donald Trump himself, Dan Smith steps back and tries to distinguish the signal from the noise.
He asks if a ground invasion is likely as troops build up, whether there is an off-ramp for the US, and assesses just what is going on in the Straits of Hormuz.
Smith is a distinguished analyst and commentator on international affairs. Long active on issues such as nuclear weapons and doctrine, disarmament and arms control, and more, his most recent post was as Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute for a decade from September 2015.
He blogs here.
RK
This article was originally published by Dan Smith's blog on Sat 4 Apr 2026. Read the original here.
The war on Iran: signals emerging from the noise
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It would not surprise me much if US raids the key nuclear sites, takes control and makes unavailable the enriched uranium and its production. And declares a victory.
“mocking and snarling from the sidelines.”
Trump is priceless, mocking the British Navy while the US Navy’s $US15bn pride and joy the Gerald Ford has had to leave the theatre because the plumbing doesn’t work. And the crew are mutinous.
The C-in-C keeps moving the deckchairs on the Titanic – he ‘doesn’t care’ any more about the residual 440kg of HEU, regime change was ‘never a war aim’ and his repeated promise to street protesters in Iran that “help is on the way” has translated into the ‘Guernican’ carpet bombing of civilian infrastructure; if he orders the aerial destruction of Iran’s desalination plants, Tehran will do likewise to all those who host American bases in the Gulf. Complete and utter chaos will ensue. Sending in ‘boots on the ground’ would end in tears – live-streamed footage of US service men and women dropping like flies on the battlefield, black body-bags by the Hercules-load… with catastrophic consequences for Trump’s ‘[dis]approval rates’. And to crown it all Iran is now playing hardball: https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/03/20/china-iran-intelligence-2026-war/
not least the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS). This is all grist to Xi’s mill – Trump/Hegseth bent on epically furiously exhausting matériel at an exponential rate, and with the conspicuous absence of any sign of joined-up strategic thinking in a Trump-dominated ‘merican chain of command… what better time to snaffle Taiwan? Meanwhile Netanyahu is smirking as only he can. OK, maybe Trump will ‘off-ramp’ leaving the job – regime change, buried HEU – unfinished, but BiBi’s chances of being re-elected will have been much enhanced. And that’s the main thing. The tail wagged the dog for long enough. The Abraham Accords are in tatters. Malish. The Board of Peace shorn of its token ‘Arabs’. Trump’s Cunning Plan for Gaza, doubtless to the relief of most Gazans, will never fly. Result!