Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 13 March 2026. © Richard Kemp

Trump Derangement Syndrome, often with a comorbidity of Israel Derangement Syndrome, plays a major part in many supposed ‘expert’ opinions on the progress of this conflict. Symptoms include a suicidal glee at any sign the war isn’t going well. Intent on contorting Operation Epic Fury into the Iraq war that began more than 20 years ago, many seem desperate for Donald Trump to fail and Iran to succeed. Only these all-knowing academics, journalists and other keyboard warriors have absorbed the lessons of Iraq while Pentagon planners and battlefield commanders, they think, remain blissfully ignorant.

A defeatist outlook also results from a track record of predicting that the Tehran regime cannot be defeated and jihadists will have to be accommodated rather than vanquished. ‘I told you so’ is the refrain when those ayatollahs that are still alive open up on a few tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and fire rockets and drones at their regional neighbours as oil prices spiral and American troops take casualties. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen could not restrain his schadenfreude at reports that a US missile had tragically hit a school in Tehran.

All of this was bad and all eminently predictable, but not only by the armchair generals. All, and much worse, was factored in by political leaders and war planners in Washington and Jerusalem. It would be nice to be able to deal with the depredations of despotic regimes without breaking any eggs, but that is not possible outside of Hollywood. Nor is it pleasant to say that the end result is worth the pain when human life is lost and the cost of living spirals. But unfortunately that’s what it takes.

And the Iranian regime’s growing aggression certainly had to be faced head-on. The stars were aligned with an American president and an Israeli prime minister sufficiently courageous to seize the moment against a recently weakened Iran. Headlines like ‘a war without a strategy’ simply twist reality to fit the straitjacket eagerly donned by the submissive. To think that a war leader should publish his plans for all to read while battles are being fought betrays both arrogance and an ignorance of conflict. (more…)