Your Kingdom for a Horse

I was pro-Trump months if not years before most people reading this - July 10th 2015, to be precise. Yet I have confessed to grave misgivings about this latest war, and those misgivings were not assuaged by yesterday's remarks by the President. This is nothing to do with Levin vs Tucker vs Ben vs Megyn, etc, but for the more basic reason that America, not to be indelicate, is totally crap at war - or as I wrote twenty years ago (and read more recently):

The object of war is not to destroy the enemy's tanks but to destroy his will. As Liddell Hart put it: 'Our goal in war can only be attained by the subjugation of the opposing will...'

In my ancient bestseller, the thought occurred while I was standing next to a burnt-out Saddamite tank on the highway between the Jordanian border and Baghdad - when, only a few miles into Iraq, I was already having some nagging doubts about our will. This time, alas, I cannot stand next to a burnt-out Iranian warship because President Trump has assured us that they're all at the bottom of the sea, which no doubt is very heartening when one recalls all Tehran's tremendous naval victories over... er, India... South Africa... Papua New Guinea... um...

Yet, notwithstanding, the object of war remains not to destroy the enemy's tanks ships but to destroy his will. The Pentagon has failed to win any war for three-quarters of a century because it has no grasp of this concept. As a longtime New Hampshire resident and a naturalised US citizen, I regret this, but it is an objective fact.

So how's Iran's will holding up? Well, following the assassination of the Supreme Leader, the Assembly of Experts went frantically scrambling for their Gorbachev, in order to transition to détente with the Great Satan, or, failing that, an Admiral Dönitz, to ensure that as many as possible of the IRGC surrender to the Americans rather than the Israelis. So, with these objects in mind, the Assembly of Experts eventually settled on ...the son of the previous guy. Khamanei Junior became a widower, an orphan and a grieving parent all within a few minutes on the Saturday before last. If anyone could be forgiven for thinking, "Aw, screw it, I'm retiring to my condo at the Four Seasons in Toronto, or maybe my £50 million apartments overlooking the Israeli Embassy in Kensington", it would surely be the Boyatollah. So I am doubtful that he took the gig because his will is destroyed.

The military cliché is that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. So clearly it makes sense to have no plan at all. On that opening day, Mr Trump was talking about the Iranian masses rising up to take back their country. That didn't happen, so the President moved on to muse about "regime change" - which is narrower but pre-supposes a faction sufficiently organised to pull it off. The only fellows to hand were the Kurds, so by last Wednesday there were reports that those in Iraq had been trained and armed by the CIA to cross the border into northern Iran. But, unlike the ADHD types of the commentariat, actual Kurds remember Gulf War One, when they rose up heroically ...only to get comprehensively screwed over by George H W Bush and the rest of the muthableepers back in Washington. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. (A lesson the rah-rah right might usefully learn.)

So, by the weekend, Trump was demanding "unconditional surrender". By Monday, the President had presumably been apprised that, in the actual region where Iran lives, that would look as if Islam were unconditionally surrendering to the Zionist Entity. Which even the most washed-up ayatollah would have no reason to sign on to. So by yesterday's Florida press conference there was a faint whiff of walkbackery: well, anyway, it'll all soon be over because we're running out of targets to hit - which is more or less what the late Donald Rumsfeld said to me a handful of shock'n'awes back in October 2001.

So it sounds like there's some pressure to declare victory and go home (see Bush One above).

Against that, it should be said that there is no evidence, as of the time of writing, that the new Supreme Leader has any corporeal existence. On the Internet, where as the cool kids will tell you all the real wars are won, this video has been doing the rounds - of bigshot Iranians pledging allegiance to a cardboard cutout:

رهبر مقوایی گنده‌گوی منطقه. pic.twitter.com/LQbUGy1ZTi

— اسرائیل به فارسی (@IsraelPersian) March 9, 2026

Yeah, that's pretty funny, making allowances for the fact that memes, gifs, AI "slop" are remorselessly moronising the remnants of our civilisation. Supposing for the sake of argument that the Assembly of Experts has truly annointed a cardboard cutout as Supreme Leader, is that necessarily such a bad idea? For one thing, it makes it much harder for the Yanks to off him, assuming the mullahs took the precaution of ordering up a dozen copies from Kinko's or Staples.

For another, would the condition of our own civilisation be any worse had it been governed by cardboard cutouts this past quarter-century? Speaking for myself, I would far rather be ruled by a life-size piece of cardboard than by, say, HM The King, M Macron or at least four-fifths of the last third-of-a-century's worth of American presidents.

Which brings us back to the point I have attempted, with minimal success, to emphasise for a quarter-century: it's the home front, stupid.

This is insanity Muslims with armbands on horses chasing down people ? In Manchester? The police? What do you want us to do?? Join Restore Britain 🇬🇧 this will all be a bad dream a thing of the past come 2029 pic.twitter.com/bLY9R6DuQY

— Alexandra (@Alexandr4Denman) March 6, 2026

The New Mounties always get their infidel.

Bush's coalition-of-the-willing approach to overseas expeditionary forces cannot be replicated a generation on, because Britain, France, Germany, Canada et al are a lot more Muslim than they were back in 2002. To be sure, the Euro-Brit leaders would love to be in on the latest Yank military adventuring, because it makes them look geopolitically relevant (hence the French president's visit to, ooh, Cyprus), even if it does all end in humiliating failure and droned moppets. Nevertheless, demography cautions even the most preening geopolitical poseur: in the world's first industrialised city, the constabulary has surrendered the streets to a Muslim militia (note the uniform) on horseback, patrolling the thoroughfares lest kuffars insufficiently respectful show up at the many vigils for the late martyr Khamenei:

Britain, Canada and Western Europe are a little further ahead, but America is already well advanced on the same trajectory:

It's absolutely perfect...

A liberal man in NYC yelling about how everyone is welcome, as a Muslim man yells "Allahu Akbar!" and uses him as a literal springboard to throw a homemade bomb.

The West's suicidal empathy on video. https://t.co/d0CeWGvAiO

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) March 9, 2026

Right now, America's most iconic city has a Syrian "First Lady" who grew up in the Gulf monarchies currently being droned nightly by Iran. Nevertheless, since October 7th, she has been on the side of the mullahs' longtime proxy Hamas. The cheerleaders for the new war say Trump has "decapitated" the Tehran regime. Okay. But in a certain sense, from Gracie Mansion to wherever London's mayor lives to the premier's office in Baden-Württemberg, Islam has decapitated the west, no?

As I said of this "decapitation", c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre. As I also said that day, in order to win, all the Islamic Republic has to do is survive.

Right now, they're surviving. It's not clear that Manchester and New York are. So America's back in the war business ...and we're still surrendering the home front.

Priorities, please.