The Israelis are doing the world a big favour
Iran has been behind most of the instability in the Middle East for at least the past two decades. Its militias ignited Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and enabled Islamic State to develop across parts of the Arab world. Hezbollah, its proxy in Lebanon and Syria, kept the dreadful Assads in power for a generation and enabled the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. I saw Hezbollah up close in Syria for 10 years and I saw this year the huge joy of the Syrian people when the Iran-backed militia was vanquished there.
Iran has also directed the Houthis to bring global shipping to its knees and backs the bloody-handed murderers of Hamas. But the mullahs' grand strategic plan has always been to develop a nuclear arsenal. This would have been an intolerable danger not only to Israel but to other nations regarded as enemies by the Tehran regime – including us.
Sadly, President Donald Trump proved unable to persuade the mullahs to give up their nuclear programme. It must now be abundantly clear that the leadership in Iran has no intention of giving up its nuclear weapons programme, and Iranian bombs menace London and Washington as much as Tel Aviv. Like President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the Supreme Leader in Tehran has no concern for his civilian population.
Hence, whatever people think of Israel, their efforts in this case to end the nuclear ambitions of Iran must be applauded and supported by the entire free world. There is huge concern, and rightly so, about escalation but nobody is or should be keen to support Tehran. Even though Iran has given much support to Putin in his illegal fight with Ukraine, he has barely lifted a finger or even said anything to help.
Of course, the truth is that Putin actually disdains everyone in the Middle East and without gold, missiles or some other inducement he would never do anything for Iran. Other traditional supporters of the mullahs have been deafening in their silence. Any escalation will only come from Iran, and only if we let it.
This dangerous situation, in my view, makes it even plainer than it already was that we British must spend – as an absolute minimum – 3 per cent of GDP on defence. And that figure must not be achieved by pretending that intelligence, spies, diplomacy or pensions are defence spending, as we are doing now with our current, misleading, 2.6 per cent aspiration. We need an actual genuine increase in spending on actual genuine defence, not more smoke and mirrors from the Treasury.
Hopefully even the 'wokerati', who bizarrely seem to support everyone who would do us harm – and who seem blind to the fact that those they support do not share their values in the slightest – will realise that hiding behind their fake shemaghs and liberation flags won't protect them in any way from the mullahs who would see us all burn in hell, with gay people and feminists first in the queue.
Meanwhile with our limited resources we are doing the right things. I applaud the deployment of RAF jets to the region. Force is the only useful currency in dealing with Iran. The Israelis are doing our work for us, but we should stand ready to help if required.
And help may, in fact, be required, though we Brits cannot provide it. The deepest parts of the uranium enrichment complex at Natanz are probably beyond the reach of any weapon the Israelis have. It might be necessary to deploy the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a huge and heavy steel spear with an explosive payload like the bunker-busting bombs of WWII. Only heavy US bombers can carry the MOP, and so the decision would be one for President Trump. An alternative might be some kind of daring special operation. Mossad and the various other Israeli secret services would seem well able to manage this sort of thing, as they have proved against Hezbollah.
There are many people in this country who are concerned that this conflict will ignite a wider war across the Middle East. They worry that the UK could be drawn into the fight, and I understand that. As a British soldier I went to war twice in the region.
Nevertheless, I believe that Israel's necessary strikes on Iran's nuclear weapons programmes will make the world in general, and Britain in particular, much safer than allowing the Islamic Republic to gain possession of 'the bomb'. It is better to deal with such festering problems before they have fully developed, rather than later.
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