Boot and Ajax. These are the codenames of the respective UK and US operations that overthrew the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. But this effort did not achieve its key objectives: to strengthen the rule of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and to safeguard British oil interests. So began a period of instability for Iranian democracy and society.
In 1973, the Shah announced the nationalisation of foreign oil interests, with foreign companies shifting from being producers to customers of Iranian oil. Despite high rates of economic growth and increasing prosperity, the Shah was removed in 1979 and replaced by the Islamic regime, which is still in power today.
President Donald Trump announced at the weekend that the US had bombed three sites, Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, connected to Iran’s nuclear programme. Describing the attack and its consequences in his manner as “spectacular” and “massive” with the targets being “totally obliterated”, Trump promised more of the same if Tehran did not abandon its nuclear ambitions.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror,” Trump said from the White House, flanked by his deputy JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
There is no doubt that the Iranian regime is in disarray. About two-thirds of its missile launching sites have been destroyed by the Israeli air force, as has nearly all of its air-defence system. Its attempts at civil defence have verged on the pathetic, likely to produce long-term disquiet in its society. Its military leadership has been damaged through decapitation strikes, and, for the moment, its feared Republican Guard has been rendered impotent.
But this is not all. This comes on the back of considerable setbacks elsewhere in the region, not least to Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Hamas, and in the overthrow of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in December last year.
But is the Islamic regime of Ali Khamenei now under threat?
Of course, the US (or Israel) doesn’t have control over how the Iranians will respond. It’s uncertain, for instance, that the Iranians have been completely stopped from building a bomb, despite the use of 13,500kg bunker-buster bombs carried by B2 stealth bombers against the heavily fortified Fordo site buried as deep as 60 metres underground.
Badly damaged
While the sensitive centrifuges used to enrich uranium may have been badly damaged, it is not certain that the material had not already been moved. Taking away the means to build a bomb is one thing; ending the desire to do so is another thing altogether. That might have to involve boots on the ground, which is a threshold that few are willing to countenance crossing, given the echoes of Iraq and even Lebanon and Gaza.
The answer depends on how the Iranians choose to respond. They may grit their teeth and soldier on, as Tehran’s initial response suggests they will. But this promises greater military force.
“There will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” Trump said. “Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill.”
While air attacks can certainly slow down the nuclear programme and potentially start in motion either negotiations or civil unrest, stopping the programme will have to happen either through negotiations or through regime change.
It is unlikely that this will moderate Israel’s response. If anything, it has probably emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his White House remarks, Trump also said that he and Netanyahu had “worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel”.
At the same time, the involvement of the US provides Washington with leverage over Israel’s response, dictating Netanyahu’s interest in peace should they wish to exercise it. For now the US has signalled that it has no interest in bringing down the regime in Tehran.
And there are likely wider implications, from which countries such as South Africa cannot escape. Higher energy prices will fuel inflation, and its foreign policy, which has strongly favoured Iran, will come under renewed scrutiny.
There are limits to the effectiveness of asymmetrical warfare, the term which dominated military parlance this century, especially in operations in Afghanistan, Gaza and post-Saddam Iraq. Denoting the choice of tactics and weaponry between forces of different size and capabilities, it was pursued with vigour by Iran against American forces in Iraq, not least through increasingly sophisticated roadside IEDs, or improvised explosive devices.
And there are implications, too, for the drift towards widespread anti-Americanism, in the form not least of the BRICS, of which Iran is a member along with Russia, China and South Africa. Fresh from a bruising White House encounter, the African National Congress will have to consider carefully its growing political and commercial ties with the Islamic regime. Israel, for one, will not let Washington forget about this dimension.
Regime change
Russia has deepened its ties with Iran since invading Ukraine. The two countries signed a strategic partnership in January, and only this past week, a Kremlin spokesperson said that regime change in Iran was “unacceptable” and the assassination of the country’s supreme leader would “open the Pandora’s box”. It would certainly complicate Russia’s military challenges. Moscow has become increasingly dependent on Iranian ordnance for its war of choice in Ukraine, not least the Shahed (or Geran-2 in Russian terminology) kamikaze drones. It is not inconceivable that this might help negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, currently at a critical moment.
Trump has said that Iran should “make peace immediately. Otherwise, they’ll get hit again.” It is easier, as ever, to find an onramp to conflict than an offramp to peace, not least since Tehran also has a vote.
The outcome of Operations Boot and Ajax should be a salutary reminder that things don’t always go to plan.
[Image: Pro-Mosaddegh protests in Tehran, 16 August 1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#/media/File:1953_Iranian_coup_d’%C3%A9tat_-_Tehran_rally.jpg]
The views of the writers are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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