There are no Star Wars endings in the Middle East

A fantasist goes to war

In the climactic scenes of Star Wars, the good guys study the plans of the evil empire’s death star and realise that it contains a fatal weakness. If the heroes can drop just one bomb in precisely the right place, then the death star will explode, and the empire will fall.

Guided by the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi's spirit, Luke Skywalker uses the Force to aim his torpedoes. The Death Star detonates moments before it can fire on the rebel base, and Luke returns to be hailed as a hero who has saved the galaxy.

Many will be stunned to wake up this morning to find that Trump has taken the US to war in the Middle East. After all, he damned Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine – Biden “will drive us into World War III” – just as he damned the 2003 invasion of Iraq. MAGA was meant to be against the “forever wars” of the old US establishment.

But remember that Donald Trump does not read books. He is a superpower leader for a post-literate world. Memes and movies fill his imagination not the histories of failed campaigns.

If you understood the power of fantasy, rather than the grim constraints of reality, it was always likely that Trump would attack Iran.

Think about it. Buried in the mountains north of Qom was the Fordow nuclear facility. One precision strike — and Trump saves the world.

Guided by the spirit of Bibi-Wan Netanyahu that is what the US did, and now Trump wants to believe that the war is over.

The attacks on Fordow and two other Iranian nuclear sites had been a “spectacular military success,” he said this morning. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier."

Then, in language so cheesy even Hollywood might blush, Trump concluded:

“And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military”

Listen carefully and you might have heard the Star Wars theme swelling in the background.

Before I go any further, I must acknowledge the possibility that maybe life will be like the movies. It would be an unquestionable good if the US strikes ended the Iranian nuclear programme. To imagine a nuclear arms race in the Middle East with Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia rushing to get the bomb so they could deter a nuclear Iran, is to see a vision of hell.

And if the terrible Iranian theocracy falls because of Trump’s decision, we really would be in a world where dreams come true.

But what if the titles don’t roll? What if it turns out that God does not love Trump as Trump loves God?

The Trump administration is not equipped to fight a long war. Trump, like all insecure leaders, has surrounded himself with sycophants and nobodies — and purged the American bureaucracy of anyone capable of arguing back.

Iran could attack the 40,000 US servicemen and women stationed in the Middle East. “Operational plans have been established for that purpose,” Abu Ali al-Askari, a security official with the Iranian-backed, Iraqi- militia Kataib Hezbollah, said. “Undoubtedly, American bases throughout the region will become akin to duck-hunting grounds … not to mention the unforeseen surprises that may await its aircraft in the skies.”

Beyond that, Iran could push the world into recession by attacking the Saudi and Gulf oil industries as it did in 2019. Or it might conclude that a more effective way to send the price of oil soaring would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.

What if it turns out that Trump has not, in fact, obliterated the Iranian nuclear sites? What if the Iranian public rallies around the leadership?

Before they go to war, countries need public servants who can deal with the “what ifs”, and America may not have them any longer.

I was struck by an interview Philip Gordon, who had been Kamala Harris’s national security adviser, gave to the Financial Times last week. Instead of declaiming about the morality of war and peace he looked at the damage Trump and his friends had done to American power.

Gordon found it “extraordinary” that the US was thinking of going to war after Trump had “gutted” its National Security Council and the State Department and replaced men and women with expertise with political appointees.

Who in these circumstances will do the hard work of dealing with allies, and of ensuring the evacuation of American citizens from the Middle East, he asked.

“Who knows how to do that? And who’s talking to the foreign governments? There are so many things that you either get right or wrong. And I fear that this is hard enough under the best of circumstances [but] to do it with your hands tied behind your back because you have no NSC or national security adviser or expertise in the US government is crazy.”

Crazy or not Trump has gone to war. Maybe, the United States, the Middle East and the world may be lucky. Maybe the ayatollahs will abandon their nuclear programme and cut a deal. Maybe they will pack their bags and leave.

But at the time of writing, there is no sign that they will — and every sign that, to paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi, we are in more trouble than we can possibly imagine.

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