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.
We are rightly not privy to Trump’s exact strategy but his goals were spelt out clearly from the beginning: to terminate Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles programmes, including the development of ICBMs that could hit Europe and the US. He also set out to end Tehran’s worldwide terrorist proxy war and deny their capability to close the Strait of Hormuz.
These objectives are all being met in what has so far been a spectacularly successful campaign by the world’s two leading military powers working in a partnership unprecedented since the Second World War. Back then, Winston Churchill observed: ‘The British and United States staffs have worked together in the closest harmony and with increasing unity… they have in fact become almost one staff.’ As Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of war, put it: ‘Looking up the IRGC and Iranian regime see only two things on the side of aircraft: the Stars and Stripes and the Star of David.’
Moreover, the effectiveness of this campaign has not only been military. Politically, Trump’s strategy has succeeded in the total isolation of Tehran, never achieved before, as evidenced by this week’s UN Security Council vote condemning Iranian aggression by 13-0. Even Russia and China felt unable to stand by their ally and abstained.
Many commentators have wrongly claimed that Trump’s objective was regime change. In reality he has suggested only that it would be a welcome consequence of military action. It would indeed, and devastating air attacks against the IRGC and Basij militias may help bring it about. But, whatever clandestine support for oppositionists might also be under way, bringing down the regime will have to be in the hands of Iranians. We are not going to see American or Israeli boots on the ground in significant numbers in mainland Iraq, thus avoiding a quagmire such as occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Providing Trump and Netanyahu press on until all objectives are achieved, even if regime change does not immediately result, the region and the world will be safer after the conclusion of this war, which really began all the way back in 1979. Until now the terrorist regime had been permitted to gain in strength and danger while Western leaders didn’t do much more than wring their hands and look away. Or in the case of Barack Obama, actually encourage and even help fund their depredations.
Beyond crippling Iran’s military capability, this conflict should also neutralise a key element of China’s strategy of using Tehran to tie down US military assets in the Middle East in the event of conflict in the Pacific, as well as controlling energy supplies via the Strait of Hormuz.
America and Israel have also shown they can suppress Russian and Chinese-supplied air defences with ease, which is good news for all of Nato.
This campaign has already achieved a huge amount at relatively limited cost, with even more to come. Perhaps it’s best to take the doom mongering of those experts suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome with at least a pinch of salt!
Image: White House/Flickr