The military warning against metaphorically catching your hand in the mangle is attributed by some to the Chief of Defence Staff in 2001, when he was advising the Prime Minister about British involvement in Afghanistan. However, nine years earlier, General Sir Peter Inge had coined the term when he was Chief of the General Staff and had to advise the Government about a potential British Army deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The term is particularly apt at the moment with the war in the Gulf widening and escalating and no end in sight despite the bullish words in Washington. I have worked with the Pentagon and I am certain their considered advice about Iran’s military capability would have been comprehensive. The source of the underestimation in terms of enemy response, cultural strength and regime endurance comes from an out-of-touch diaspora and sycophantic elite.
The war is at a critical point with a potential US Marine landing this week (in the tradition of Derna in 1805). Will it be like Libya in March 2011 when France said the operation would be over in a matter of weeks, but it took more than eight months? Or will it end in humiliation like Vietnam and Afghanistan? Either way, we have already gone past the time when the World would have said it was the right course of action because the only winners now are authoritarian regimes like China and Russia.
Rupert Wieloch 