Four more weeks. for no more Iran war extension time –in its current conditions– the Spanish military is committed to the analysis of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies, which these days brings together experts in geopolitics in La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia) to analyze changes in the world.
These soldiers support their prediction in two details. On the one hand, the lowest point reached in popular approval by Donald Trump since returning to the White House. According to the Trump’s aproval rating that renews weekly The Economist, He is at 34 popularity points, with 58% of Americans surveyed disapproving of his management. In the week of May 24, the prestigious publication placed him as the most unpopular US president since the ranking was launched 17 years ago. In this situation, it must face the process of obtaining permission from Congress to continue the hostilities.
The other factor that supports the forecast is more technical, a suspicion without official data that has emerged to give it a basis: the deterioration of the North American arsenal of weapons of high tactical value. In the 25 billion dollars estimated by North American authorities as the cost of the war (a month ago), the bill includes an unofficially determined number of Tomahawk missilesmainly for naval use for land attacks, and 900 kilo GBU bombs for attacks of great destructive power against underground facilities and bunkers. In both types of weapons, the North American stock, according to these sources, which include a widespread forecast among analysts in Europe, could have reached a historic low due to the prolongation of the war, based almost exclusively on air attacks, without allowing Tehran to negotiate its surrender.
Donald Trump has reached the peak of his internal unpopularity, according to statistics from The Economist. / SAMUEL CORUM / POOL
The estimate, with the information handled by Spanish military experts in conflict observation, comes to sketch in a summary way the balance of a war that this Thursday turns three months old duration since, on February 28, the United States and Israel, without notifying their allies, began their air campaign over Iran.
“About this war,” the Minister of Defense has reiterated, Margarita Robles-– we don’t know why it started and we still don’t know what its objective is.” And he has said Joseph Borrellformer head of European diplomacy, that Trump has acted “as if he thought that Iran is a second Venezuela, when it seems rather that it is not.” Both Robles and Borrell have taken part in the La Granja events.
“The Iranian regime will probably emerge stronger from this war, despite having lost it militarily,” he stated. the admiral and former head of the Fleet Juan Rodríguez Garat this Thursday in Barcelona, speaking at the II Forum on Pau i Seguretat a Europa, organized by PRENSA IBÉRICA.
Go for ballistic missiles
On May 14, the most formal official American assessment of the war was embodied in black on white. He presented it on USCENTCOM, or military chief of the global center region, Admiral Charles Bradfordto the Armed Services Committee of the North American Senate.
“We have damaged or destroyed 85% of the Iranian ballistic missile, drone and naval defense industrial base,” Admiral Bradford, head of Central Command, tells the US Senate.
It is a summary of operations of 17 pages, of which six are dedicated to the balance of the company. Operation Epic Furythe result of at least 38 days of “combat operations in coordination with the Israel Defense Forces.”
Bradford tells senators: “We have damaged or destroyed 85% of the Iranian ballistic missile, drone and naval defense industrial base”in such a way that “more than 1,450 attacks “Weapons manufacturing facilities have set back for years the regime’s ability to make and stockpile ballistic missiles and long-range drones.”
An allegory of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by sewing Donald Trump’s mouth on a billboard in Tehran. / ATTA KENARE – AFP
This destruction, according to the admiral, means that Iran “will not be able to replace the factories and technical workforce in the long term.” In addition, “we have destroyed, he says, most of Iran’s ballistic missiles, launch vehicles and long-range drones with more than 450 attacks on missile warehouses and systems, and 800 attacks against drone launchers and storage”.
By sea and air
According to the summary of this North American military leader, for the Pentagon’s Central Command, now, “Iran’s air and anti-aircraft forces are functionally and operationally irrelevant (…) We have left out of combat 82% of its air defense missile systems with its radars and command systems”.
The count continues by sea: 161 ships destroyed in total, 16 classes of warships, and “90% of Iran’s once massive inventory of more than 8,000 naval mines.”
With these attacks, Admiral Bradford believes that Iran has lost its ability to provide military power to its proxies in the region (Houthis and Hezbollah), has gone back 40 years in its military investment and the destruction of command and control systems “have created leadership gapsparalysis and internal confusion”.
There is no reference to collateral damage from the bombings in Bradford’s report – received without any enthusiastic comment by the 31 US allies in NATO – but there is alludes to 13 human losses in their own ranks.
The report does not speculate on when the Strait of Hormuz, which is currently still subject to the conditions imposed by the Iranian Republican Guard, and is the regime’s main negotiating asset.
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