Former head of MI6: Iran has the “upper hand” in the war | The Economist

I feel the war is at this really important  juncture. President Trump is trying to reopen. the Strait of Hormuz by military means through  threats against Iranian power plants and to seek. to end the war through diplomatic talks.  I think what people are struggling with, what I'm struggling with is a full understanding  of who has the upper hand right now, who is in a. stronger position as that process unfolds. Iran.  I think um and I I regret having had come to this.

conclusion because like many MI6 officers of my  generation um we faced the violence and brutality. of the IRGC for most of our careers. That's  the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp. Yeah. So there is no love lost between us. And I shed  no tears for Ali Khamenei um who was killed at. the beginning of this war. But the reality is  that um uh the US underestimated the task and.

um I think as of about two weeks ago  lost the initiative to Iran. In practice, the Iranian regime has been more resilient than I  think anyone would have expected. They took some. good decisions actually uh as as early as last  June about dispersing their military capability. and delegating the authority for the use of those  weapons which has given them uh significant extra.

resilience against this incredibly powerful um  air campaign. They have embarked on what's technic. called technically called horizontal escalation  i.e. firing rockets at anybody within range which. at the time honestly um Shashank I thought was  nuts but in fact has been a very good way of. putting indirect price on the US sort of worked  and then um they've understood the significance. of the of the energy war and held the streets  at threat and globalized and essentially not.

internationalized just globalize the conflict  in a way that gives them gives them some some. uh some weapons. So, uh, you know, they've played  a weak hand pretty well and at the same time, my second point is that Donald Trump has said some  stuff that will have confirm something they knew. already, which is that they're in a civilizational  war in their terms. You know, they're they're um.

in a war of existence. Donald Trump made it very  clear that he wanted to see them um, you know, up against the wall basically. uh whereas  America has embarked on a war of choice and. um in those terms I think they that's that's  um imbued them with more staying power than. their than their US and certainly US counterparts  and they know that now and I think that really is. giving them the whip hand and then finally there's  a there's a very technical point which you'll be.

as expert or or more expert on than I am which  is about stocks of drones And the reality as I. understand it that whilst this has been an almost  perfectly executed military campaign from the air, you can't reduce the threat to zero. And while  you can't reduce the threat to zero, Iran can hold. the straits at threat. Even with just 10% of its  initial drone stocks, it can hold the straits at.

threat because these are not military people that  it's not a military audience you have to satisfy. is people who own oil tankers and captains of  oil tankers and that really does give them the. whip hand. So I think the options for the US  and Israel are pretty limited and not great. That really brings us to the question of the  regime which is you know in place weakened. um but still the Islamic Republic stands as  an as a revolutionary entity the revolutionary.

guard the organisation that planted roadside  bombs that killed many of your colleagues in. over those years that stands and is surviving. So  to start with have they been more resilient than. you thought? How do you understand their  their survival and their endurance now? I think that they um are in the death throws and  um uh but I think the irony is that the biggest. threat to them is peace not war. The January  uprising showed that they have no answers. The.

hatred that engendered is endemic and will will  will last for decades. Uh the estimates are up to. 10,000 of their own citizens machine gunned in  the street by IRGC sponsored militias. I don't. expect them to survive into the long term as a  result. But of course, ironically, this situation.

is an environment where they um they get an extra  lease of life because uh it's hard for opposition. to organize in the face of an air campaign and  they're licensed to be even more brutal than. they were before. I think um when it comes to the  nuclear stuff um the very large majority of Iran. perhaps 80% of them are are against in fact they  are they are they've had it with the theocratic.

regime and that that actually was sort of how the  voting went when Masoud Pezeshkian was elected. that you know so this is data from president  of Iran and it wasn't a manipulated election. you know it showed that pretty well 80% of Iran  wants nothing more to do with this sort of total. resistance theocratic ideology, but the 20% or or  probably even less 10% are the ones with the guns. and that is proving decisive. They are empowered  by this situation to continue to brutalize the. population. You've got this interesting attrition  that's taken place at the top of the regime and.

new faces coming through. Uh some of them  though probably quite well known to you, the new IRGC chief, General Vahidi. He's a  former goods force commander. The Quds force. was of course very active in Iraq and Afghanistan  and and and you would have seen them up close. Um. you've got uh uh of course Ali Larajani killed  last week in an air strike but people like say. Jalilei and other figures who were long you know  at the top of this regime still there. Um many of.

the people you'd have been studying closely SSIS  chief I'm sure have died in the last two weeks. You know there's been huge turnover. What do you  make of the kind of ideological complexion of the. regime as it has changed in these last four weeks?  I think the net effect which was probably going to. happen anyway is that the that we've seen the end  of the the theocracy actually with the end of Ali.

his successor was never going to be as powerful as  he was. That's kind of it. And in Mojtaba although. he's ostensibly a cleric he doesn't have his  father's credentials. you basically see an IRGC. takeover. Not a dictatorship so much as a junta,  I would say. Um, and that's how Iran is being run. now. So you know paraphrase the beards have got  shorter. Tell me a bit more about the IRGC because. they're the regime's Revolutionary Guard. They're  in a way a bit like the PLA. They're the armed.

force that guards the revolution, not the state.  That's the regular army which is disempowered, not very influential. But how religious is it?  How ideological are they? Because they also have. big business interests, don't they? They're also  corrupt. They're sort of smuggling things across. borders. Who are these people? Yeah, they're no  less ruthless than Ali Khamenei, but they are more. corrupt and um uh significantly significant  beneficiaries of the sanctions regime. So,

they're sort of invested in this um sort of  uh black economy that's being created by the. long-standing sanctions, which is one of the  reasons why you might think they would be more. pragmatic in these circumstances. It's important  to understand Mojtaba as just a sort of I mean, we've never even seen him. He's just a figurehead  to all of this. So, these guys are in charge. None of them, as you say, have any sort of track  record that might imply leanings toward reform,

but they are, I think, more pragmatic. That's  certainly true. You say the regime is in its death. throes now. You know, that process, it can be  terminal, but that process could last a long time. for Iran. What follows? I mean, you're not a mind  reader, but what are the prospects you would put. on a democratic transition versus some other kind  of rather messy and unpleasant transition? Yeah, I actually think in some ways this war,  as I've said, may sustain their capacity. to brutalise the regime. But I particularly  think after what happened in January, yeah,

the chances of them keeping the show on the road  indefinitely are low. Look, what comes next, who. knows? All I can counsel is just sort of listen to  the dialogue in particular, anything that any sort. of buyers remorse around the Mushtaba appointment  when they could have put in someone like Ayatal. Humeni's son who is a much more pragmatic person  but has real religious credentials that would have. been another way to go that in fact would have  ordered a some kind of shift. Masoud Pezeshkian,

listen to him, you know, fundamentally a secular  reformist figure, but clearly really under the. thumb of the IRGC at the moment. If he starts  speaking more freely, then you have the prospect. of the 80% of Iran that is actually just sort  of had enough of this starting to prevail, not just demographically, but electorally. Maybe  that would be a clue that I would be listening to.