Is the US military strategy working? | Iran War Briefing Day 21 with Prof Michael Clarke

Day 21 of the war, exactly three weeks, and it's easier to interpret what's happening militarily than politically.

Militarily, we see the pattern of strikes, and those strikes are occurring every 24 hours or so. But we're

particularly interested in the sort of strikes and the targets that are taking place here on Iran's coast with the Gulf because the Americans seem to be in their third stage of their offensive.

And we can tell that by the types of weapons that they've used in the first stage of the offensive when they were actually attacking the air defense systems. Dangerous thing to do for an aircraft. Easier for a tomahawk missile.

aircraft. Easier for a tomahawk missile.

That's what they used. Once they had some power over the the land when when they could go over Iran more safely, then they were using Lancer bombers, the B1Bs, to drop bombs on targets that they

were particularly interested in. And now

they're drilling down by using the Thunderbolt aircraft like this, the A-10s, which are low and slow, but death to anything on the ground. And the

Thunderbolts are ranging up and down the coast of Iran, looking for targets, small boats, installations, missile launches, anything. And that tells us

launches, anything. And that tells us that the Americans are on stage three of their air campaign. It's going the way they would have wanted it to go.

Politically, not so easy to interpret.

Benjamin Netanyahu has said that this might be over sooner than you think. And

I suspect he was trying to appease President Trump. He said, "We've just

President Trump. He said, "We've just got to remove the nuclear threat, remove the ballistic missile threat, create the conditions for Iran to control its own destiny." But if you think about it, all

destiny." But if you think about it, all of those things are difficult to determine precisely. They'll be achieved

determine precisely. They'll be achieved when he says they're achieved. Why would

he do that? The reason I think he's doing it is because the Americans have got very nervous of what happened here in the South Ps gas field. This is a

huge gas field in the Gulf. The south ps part of it is on the Iranian side of the Gulf. It's in their waters and the

Gulf. It's in their waters and the Israelis struck that. They bomb that and in retaliation the Iranians then bombed

the Raslafan refinery in Qatar which handles 20% of all the LNG that actually goes into the world economy. And that's

one of the reasons why LNG prices have gone so high. And I think that that has actually spooked Washington into the idea that this war is spinning out of control politically and also economically

because this is really what it's all about. And I I love these sort of maps.

about. And I I love these sort of maps.

This is the real world. So there is the straight of as seen from a satellite.

Here is the Gulf. Here is Saudi Arabia.

Here is Bahrain and Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and Oman. North of here that's the that's the top of the Gulf.

There is Iraq. There is Iran. And then

into the Black Sea, there's Ukraine.

There are the Trans Caucus of States.

There is Russia. Coming onto this side of the Caspian Sea, there is Kazakhstan.

There is Tekkenistan. There is

Afghanistan. There is Pakistan. Right

down to the Arabian Sea. And between the Arabian Sea and the Caspian Sea is Iran.

And Tehran is round about there.

This is Southwest Asia. It is one of the engines, not the only one, but one of the engines of the world economy.

Southwest Asia provides resources, oil and gas and petrochemicals. It provides

fertilizer which drives world food production. It provides international

production. It provides international banking, transport, lots of things come out of this part of the world. And yet

this engine of the world economy is stuttering at the moment because one component of it, this 33 kilometer bit of water is not open. And that's pretty fundamental to the way in which that

region contributes to the world economy.

You know, sometimes wars look a bit like sport. Sometimes in sport, a match, a

sport. Sometimes in sport, a match, a game, a whole championship is dependent on a foot that goes out of touch. A ball

that lands just inside the touch line, just outside the touch line. Tiny

margins make the difference between victory and defeat. And sometimes in this area of southwest Asia, the area that we used to say was part of the great game of Asia, all the attention

now is on that part of the touchline that we call the straight performers.