Are the US and its allies miscalculating once again with their war plans?

cc. In a detailed video conversation between Norwegian political scientist and author Glenn Diesen and former US Army colonel, senior Pentagon advisor, and political commentator Douglas Macgregor,¹ both discuss the situation in West Asia. An escalation is brewing here that could set the entire Middle East ablaze and lead to a world war.

[…] Glenn Diesen: One area where we could see the US, and possibly its NATO allies, coming into conflict with this new bloc being shaped – with Russia and China at the centre – is, of course, the Middle East. I’m not sure if there’s a stalemate going on with Iran. It appears that Trump wanted an easy victory or a short war, but the Iranians seem to have essentially threatened massive retaliation against any attack, which makes it very difficult to assert any escalation control – that is, to decide when the war should start, how it should be fought, and when it should end. But how does this affect the wider, I guess, strategic picture here? To what extent would, for example, Russia and China involve themselves, or probably already involve themselves, to some extent?
    Douglas Macgregor: I think we have to understand something. The Mossad–CIA–MI6 triumvirate was successful in persuading President Trump, a few weeks ago, that Iran was on the verge of falling apart – disintegrating – all based on what they claimed was a concerted effort inside the country to overthrow the government.
    In reality, the protests [in Iran] that began were quite legitimate. They were not violent, and they weren’t aimed at overthrowing anyone. These were large numbers of people who were extremely upset over the state of the Iranian economy, for which we in the United States are mightily responsible. Their currency was being systematically destroyed, and they were all aware of that. And that was the foundation for the protests. They were not necessarily aimed at regime change.
    Then the Mossad – with support from MI6 and the CIA – inserted themselves into the equation. We don’t need to go back over the 40,000 Starlink terminals that were smuggled into the country, or the Mossad agents who were operating within the crowds, providing money as well as weapons to people and urging them to shoot at police and kill members of the government, and so forth.
    All of that was, thanks to Russian and Chinese assistance, very rapidly suppressed and eliminated, frankly. The 40,000 Starlink terminals were shut down, and the Russians and the Chinese both helped identify where they were. That helped the Iranians eliminate that threat.
    But the people who went in to tell Donald Trump that Iran was weak, vulnerable, and easy to essentially overthrow are still there. And then they went back to President Trump and said, “Well, you know, our attempt to overthrow the government surreptitiously, using intelligence forces, failed.” His answer was, “Well, what’s the next step?” And that was a legitimate question – and he got an answer. The answer came from both the intelligence community and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs: we don’t have enough firepower; we don’t have enough force on hand to affect anything inside Iran.
    The reason nothing has happened so far is because we’re still waiting for additional assets to show up. There are probably at least two more carrier battle groups on their way to the region. Now, one may be in the Mediterranean; I don’t know. Another one will certainly be down in the Indian Ocean. But I also don’t know what’s going on at the Air Force side of the house. We have to remember that the real power behind the strikes on Iran won’t come from the fleet at sea – it will come from the United States Air Force. They’ll deliver, presumably from high altitude and out of range of Iranian air and missile defence capabilities, enormous firepower in the form of glide bombs, precision strike weapons, and so forth.
    So these talks that have now been convened, I think, are meaningless. I don’t think the Iranians are terribly fooled. They’re showing up because the Chinese and the Russians said, “Go to the talks. Listen to what they have to say.” But they’ve also made it very clear right up front that Mr Netanyahu’s talking points, which form the basis of President Trump’s demand – two out of those three talking points – have been dismissed out of hand. And that is any change, dismantlement, or restructuring of the missile arsenal so that Israel need not worry about being within range of Iranian weapons. That’s off the table. And the notion that Iran will stop supporting or working with its allies in the region – that’s off the table too. The only thing they’re willing to talk about, apparently, is enriched uranium. Now, how far can that reach? I’m not sure it can get very far, because if you start talking about levels of enrichment, storage issues, and where it’s going to be, you’re on the road back to the JCPOA² that was there under the Obama administration. I don’t think these talks are serious at all. I think they’re just buying time. […]
    That brings us to the next question, which is the most important one: What’s the objective of the probable air and missile campaign that will start in another week to ten days? Is it regime change? Are we back to that? Or is there something else? Well, I think there’s still going to be a concerted effort to identify, find, target, and destroy the government if it can be done.
    But I think this is about destroying Iran. People need to understand that. This is a ruthless war of destruction. It’s designed to promote the disintegration of the Iranian nation-state. They think they can do this. I have my doubts. This is, after all, a nation of ninety-three million. The area is about the size of Western Europe. But of course, the areas of greatest interest are still largely in the north and central parts of the country. They’re not down south, which means the targeting challenge isn’t as immense as it would be if you were going after Western Europe. But it’s still a significant challenge. And I think that’s where they’re headed. They simply want to destroy this nation-state, cause it to divide, to fragment.
    And again, you go back to the intelligence assessments, to the people who’ve been telling Donald Trump – and who told Biden, by the way – that Russia is weak. Russia will be easy to defeat. Russia can’t withstand the pressure. We’re hearing the same kinds of things now about Iran. But Iran is not Russia, and Iran has several very serious vulnerabilities. You’re familiar with them – water is a huge problem, and food for the people who live in the country. They’re dependent on external deliveries of food. Can the Russians and the Chinese help with that? Perhaps.
    But I think that’s a real danger for Iran. The question is, can they [the US] do enough damage to the point where somebody stands up and says, “Enough, we can’t take it anymore”? Now, what’s the Iranian response to this? The Iranian response is that they have no incentive to exercise any restraint. If they’re attacked, their predisposition is to use everything they have. The issue for us is, how effective that will be. I’ve always said – and I think others agree with this – the Iranians can handle Israel. But can the Iranians handle Israel and the United States, in terms of military power? That’s unclear.
    Enormous amounts of weaponry, munitions, missiles, and so forth have been delivered over the last few weeks by the Chinese. The Russians have been on the ground, working to help with the integrated air and missile defences. The Chinese – and I presume the Russians as well, though we know without a doubt the Chinese have done this – have provided satellite imagery, real-time feeds to the Iranians. So, the Iranians are not in the same position they were last time, where they might not know where things are or be caught by surprise. I think they know where everything is now, and that includes the ships at sea. If you look at the weapons, I don’t know how many of these missiles – I think it’s the DF-21 or DF-23³ – that the Chinese have produced exclusively for targeting ships at sea. We haven’t seen them used, and we don’t know how effective they are. But given Iran’s performance during the 12-day war, it turned out their weaponry was actually very accurate and very precise. I think that, in addition to firing whatever they’ve got at Israel, they will definitely hit our bases, and they’ll probably go after our ships at sea.
    What they [the US] can affect, obviously, are massive bombing runs right now. Now, we don’t know – perhaps, depending on the path our bombers take and the altitude – can they be tracked? Well, stealth is not the miracle most people think it is. Stealth, in terms of the design built into aircraft, can delay detection, but it can’t make you invisible. So you can delay detection for some period of time; I don’t know what that delay looks like. What we can’t address right now is what happens to B-2s that overfly. Can you use B-52s if the B-2s have to be very effective against the air and missile defences, as well as the critical targets, before you can use B-52s? B-52s are wonderful delivery systems for massive numbers of bombs, but they’re very vulnerable because they’re old aircraft. They’re easy to target and shoot down.
    There are a lot of questions we can’t answer. I don’t know what answers are being provided to Donald Trump, but I suspect he’s the victim of what I’d call the “rosy scenario.”
    The final point is, how long can this last? I think ten days to two weeks is about it, because at that point we’re actually scraping the bottom of the barrel for missiles. And that’s not a minor issue, because you’ve got to protect your ships at sea and your bases at home. How many missiles can you afford to expend before you’re at an unacceptably low and dangerous level – especially if the Chinese and the Russians become involved? I think that’s the final question.
    Everybody asks, “What do you think the Chinese and Russians are going to do?” And the only answer I can give is that neither China nor Russia will allow Iran to be pulverised out of existence. In other words, if it gets to the point where Iran really is on the ropes and could disintegrate, then Russia and China, I think, will act. Now, what will that action consist of? It won’t be nuclear, but it could involve a collision at sea very easily, because both China and Russia have plenty of submarines – and we’re not very good at tracking modern nuclear-powered submarines in deep water.

I think people often see China as very cautious, and I’d agree with that. But allowing Iran to fall in this way has nothing to do with caution – it’s extremely dangerous. It’s hard to imagine either Iran or China wanting to go directly against the United States, but something has to be done to prevent Iran from collapsing. Given that Iran would go all in, since they see this as existential, they won’t accept any kind of limited “bloody nose” attack that could stop the war. And since the Chinese and the Russians can’t afford to see the balkanisation or destruction of Iran, do you think the war would still happen? I’ve heard some suggest that Trump is trying to walk this one back – or is it simply too late now?
    I don’t know that it’s necessarily too late. I think the decision has been made – that was my point about the talks. I don’t think the talks are serious at all. I think it’s just a matter of time to assemble more assets for what’s obviously going to be a much larger challenge than they originally envisioned. I think they thought they were going to have an easier time destabilising and then ultimately destroying the regime. I think they had assembled what they thought they needed to attack the regime at the point when they were convinced it was very, very vulnerable. That turned out to be false.
    Now, there’s something else that deserves mention, because we don’t bring it up very much. I noted that the Ayatollah – the supreme leader, whatever title you want to use – who actually speaks very rationally when you listen carefully to what he says, has made it clear that this war will not be like the last one. This will be a regional war. Now, people are interpreting that to mean, well, that’s because the Iranians can target all the bases in the region and may ultimately go after ships at sea. That’s part of it.
    But I don’t think we’re looking at the region through an objective lens. And I’m talking specifically about Turkey – Türkiye. The Turks are very concerned for several reasons. First of all, they see no benefit to the destruction of Iran. What they expect is that if Iran disintegrates or fails to hold together, they’ll be overwhelmed with tens of thousands – maybe millions – of refugees. That’s probably also true for Iraq and the other surrounding Arab states. None of those states want to face that. And frankly, many of those people would probably be redirected toward Europe. I’d be very surprised if that didn’t happen. The Turks don’t want anything to do with that.
    Secondly, the Turks are dealing with the Israelis right now in Syria, and to a lesser extent in Lebanon. They know what the “Greater Israel Project” is about. The population of Turkey itself is enraged over what has happened in Gaza. The hatred of the Israelis in Turkey is so thick you could cut it with a knife. In Istanbul, there’s an exhibit – something we might compare to the Holocaust Museum, something along those lines. And this exhibit is all about Gaza. I haven’t seen it myself, but I have friends and relatives who have been there, and they told me it’s absolutely shocking. The images of murdered children, the starving population, the destruction – it’s overwhelming. The Turkish population is streaming throug this place in Istanbul, and it’s getting coverage all over Turkey.
    And there is a readiness in Turkey, to be frank, to fight. So, if you’re sitting in Turkey and it looks like things are so bad in Iran that the place could, in fact, fall apart and disintegrate, do you wait to be next on the menu? Because from the Turkish vantage point, if Iran goes down… That leaves only us to oppose Israeli Jewish supremacy in the region. And I don’t think the Turks want to be alone in that. Given that situation, what would you do as a Turk? Well, you’d also talk to the Russians and the Chinese.
    The Russians have a lot invested in Turkey – they’re building a nuclear power station there. They’ve had their ups and downs with the Turks, but this is an existential question. I think the Russians, the Turks, and the Chinese will all work something out at some point, and they’ll be united in their opposition to the destruction of Iran. […] In other words, this is a disaster on a regional scale that could ultimately spill over and become almost global. That’s the bad news.
    And I don’t think there’s an appreciation for that in the White House. I think, once again, you’re dealing with people who say, just as they did about Russia, “It’s weak, it’s this, it’s that. No one will challenge us. No one will stand up to us.” What happened the last time? Did the Chinese or the Russians do anything? The answer is no. But the last time was not an existential question. The last time, it ended after twelve days.
    I don’t think President Trump wants this to happen. I really don’t. But I don’t think he has much choice. I think he’s a prisoner of his commitments to others over the last couple of years that ended up putting him in the White House. So I don’t think he can back away from this.

One of the major weaknesses, the way I see it, is this illusion of escalation control. It’s similar to what’s happening in Europe – the idea that we can just keep the war against Russia on a slow burner, that they’ll just slowly kill each other, and we can end it whenever we want at the negotiating table or whatever. But it just seems like this could explode at any time. If the front lines begin to collapse, as they appear to be doing, and the Russians start making major advances, it’s very hard to see why they would accept any compromise that would allow NATO to revive the Ukrainian front line against Russia in the future.
    Same with Iran. I think once this war has begun and the same thing happens, the US or Israel would run out of missiles. I don’t think you can just hit the pause button and fight it again six months later. It would be very difficult to get this thing under control. So again, the illusion of escalation control seems to be a problem. […]
    Let me just make an observation that was passed to me a few hours ago by someone who has spent many, many hours – perhaps hundreds – watching videos and speeches by President Putin. He pointed out something I found very interesting. You realise that 2 February is the anniversary of the fall of Stalingrad. […] Putin went to the memorial service in Stalingrad. And this man remarked that it wasn’t so much what Putin said, which was predictable, but that he had never seen him so sombre before. Not just deeply moved by the event – that’s not unusual in Russia – but especially sombre, almost downcast in his posture and expression. He connected this to some discussions going on in Russia among various people, suggesting that President Putin may have reached the point where he’s not sure there’s much hope for any kind of – I don’t want to say reconciliation – but any kind of useful agreement with Washington. I think President Putin has now come to the conclusion that Russia may have to oppose us. […] I say that because there are a lot of people in the West who don’t understand the Russians, and certainly don’t understand President Putin. I would urge everybody to take the time to look at that memorial service from 2 February and watch him very carefully – not just the translated statements, but look at him, his posture, how he behaves. He’s very, very sombre. I think he’s very serious, and I would take note of that if I were in Washington. […] •

¹www.youtube.com/watch of 5 February 2026

² JCPOA: The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which monitors and restricts Iran’s nuclear program while lifting sanctions, was agreed upon in 2015 by the governments of Iran, the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, Germany, and the EU, but was terminated in 2018 by US President Trump.

³ DF-21 and DF-23 are Chinese medium-range missiles.

Source: www.video-translations.org/transcripts/2786_Diesen_2026_02_05.pdf; (abridged, linguistically edited by Current Concerns)