The Iran question: what Britain isn’t asking

The intelligence gap nobody wants to discuss

The contradiction at the centre of the crisis is easily stated. The US intelligence community’s own assessment - stated publicly by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in March 2025 - is that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Khamenei has not reauthorised the weapons programme he suspended in 2003. The Defence Intelligence Agency’s May 2025 assessment was equally direct: “Iran almost certainly is not producing nuclear weapons.” In February 2026, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told France’s TF1 he had seen no indication that Iran was currently working to develop one.

President Trump’s response to his own intelligence director was characteristically succinct: “I don’t care what she said.”

This is not a minor discrepancy. The entire public justification for the largest American military build up in the Middle East since the Iraq invasion - two carrier strike groups, over fifty additional fighter aircraft, B-2 bombers on heightened alert, Patriot and THAAD batteries deployed across the Gulf - rests on the premise that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat. The intelligence community says otherwise. The administration either possesses information it has not shared, or it is constructing a casus belli from materials that do not support the structure.

There is nuance worth acknowledging. Iran enriched uranium to 60 per cent purity - close to the roughly 90 per cent weapons-grade threshold - and the DIA assessed in May 2025 that Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade material for a first device in “probably less than one week” if it chose to do so. Capability and intent are different things. But Washington has chosen to collapse that distinction, treating latent capacity as equivalent to active weaponisation. The IAEA - which maintains access to Iran’s declared sites and has been pressing, with diminishing success, for access to undeclared facilities - does not support that conflation.

Britain’s policy community should be asking hard questions about this gap. It is not.

Regime change is not rhetoric

The second uncomfortable reality: the stated objective is regime change. Trump declared on 13 February that it would be “the best thing that could happen.” Axios reported on 20 February that military options presented to Trump include targeting Khamenei directly, along with his son Mojtaba - widely regarded as a potential successor. The New York Times reported on 22 February that Trump is weighing an initial limited strike followed by a far larger campaign later this year explicitly aimed at toppling the regime.

The policy community’s instinct is to treat this as posturing - the rhetorical excess of a president who negotiates through escalation. That instinct may prove catastrophic. Venezuela demonstrated what happens when this administration concludes that military action carries acceptable political costs. The “Donroe Doctrine” - unilateral intervention followed by compliant economic arrangements - is not theoretical. It was operationalised on 3 January 2026 in Caracas. Iran is larger, more capable, and vastly more dangerous. But the pattern of intent is identical: maximum pressure, then regime removal dressed as liberation.

Senior national security officials have reportedly warned Trump that a regime change operation “does not guarantee success.” That caveat matters less than the fact it was presented as an option at all.

There is also the question of mechanism. The current US force posture - carrier strike groups, tactical aviation, long-range bombers - is configured for precision strike, not occupation. Regime change against a state of 88 million people with functioning institutions and a mobilised security apparatus has no precedent of success through air power alone. The US has not deployed, and shows no indication of deploying, ground forces at the scale required. Without them, strikes can degrade infrastructure and kill leaders. They cannot install a successor government or prevent the security vacuum that follows decapitation. The administration appears to be pursuing a maximalist political objective with a force structure designed for a limited military one. That mismatch is not a detail. It is the central planning failure.

There is a further dimension the regime change advocates appear not to have modelled. Civil unrest in Iran has been persistent since the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022, with renewed episodes through 2025. Much of the Middle East reads this not as organic democratic expression but as American-backed destabilisation - a grey-zone campaign conducted through information operations, sanctions pressure and covert support for opposition networks. Whether that reading is wholly accurate is secondary; it shapes how Tehran’s leadership perceives its strategic environment and, consequently, how it negotiates. A regime that believes it faces a coordinated internal-external campaign does not make concessions from weakness. It calcifies.

The deeper miscalculation concerns Iranian public opinion. Western analysis habitually conflates domestic discontent with the clerical establishment and latent sympathy for American objectives. The evidence does not support that conflation. Opposition to the velayat-e faqih - the doctrine of clerical guardianship that underpins Khamenei’s authority - coexists, across generations and including among Iran’s digitally literate young, with entrenched hostility toward the United States and Israel. Western think tanks and policy planners consistently underweight this. Iranians who resent their government do not, for that reason, welcome foreign military action against their country. A US-led campaign would, with high probability, trigger a nationalist consolidation that strengthens the regime’s domestic legitimacy at precisely the moment Washington intends to shatter it. The colour revolution playbook assumes popular acquiescence to externally accelerated regime collapse. Iran’s history - from Mossadegh in 1953 to the hostage crisis to the Soleimani killing in 2020 - suggests the opposite.

The Geneva track: diplomacy or deadline?

Indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, mediated by Oman, resumed in Geneva on 17 February. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner - neither of whom carries conventional diplomatic credentials for nuclear negotiations - met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. A third round is scheduled for 26 February.

On paper, progress. Araghchi has spoken of a “good chance” for a diplomatic resolution. Oman’s foreign minister described “positive push” toward an agreement. Iran’s president signalled that recent talks involved “practical proposals” and “encouraging signals.”

Look closer. The US position remains “zero enrichment” on Iranian soil, though a senior official told Axios the administration might consider “small, token enrichment” if Iran can demonstrate no pathway to a weapon. Araghchi insists Washington did not demand zero enrichment in the Geneva sessions - a claim the administration disputes. 

What is being attempted is compellence, not deterrence - and compellence, as the strategic literature consistently warns, is the harder task. The negotiating pattern itself warrants attention. In the rounds preceding Operation Midnight Hammer, the US position shifted progressively - initially signalling acceptance of limited enrichment, then hardening its terms across successive rounds until the gap became unbridgeable by design. Whether the current sequence - from “zero enrichment” to possible “small, token enrichment” - represents genuine flexibility or a repetition of the same tactic in reverse is, at minimum, an open question. Tehran’s negotiators have reason to read it as the latter.

The timeline tells the same story. In June 2025, the White House set a two-week deadline for diplomatic progress. Three days later, it launched Operation Midnight Hammer against three Iranian nuclear sites. The DIA’s subsequent battle damage assessment - which the White House branded “flat-out wrong” and attributed to “a low-level loser in the intelligence community” - concluded that Iran’s centrifuges were “predominantly undamaged” and the strikes had delayed the programme “by a few months at most.” Enriched uranium had been relocated before the bombs fell.

Trump has now set a ten-to-fifteen-day window for a deal. The military is reportedly prepared to strike as early as this weekend. If the June 2025 pattern holds - deadline, then action irrespective of diplomatic movement - the Geneva track may be less a negotiation than a procedural threshold designed to demonstrate that alternatives were exhausted.

That is speculation, not assessment. But the precedent is recent, specific and troubling.

What the war plans leave out

Western policy discussion treats a US-Iran conflict as a contained, precision affair - targeted strikes on nuclear and missile infrastructure, wrapped up in days. The military reality is different.

Iran demonstrated during the 12-day war with Israel in June 2025 that its arsenal is not symbolic. Tehran launched over 550 ballistic missiles and more than 1,000 drones at Israel. Missiles struck populated areas, a hospital, military and energy installations. A missile hit a US base in Qatar. Iran’s strategic missile goal prior to the war stood at building an arsenal of 8,000 ballistic missiles according to Israeli intelligence estimates - a saturation doctrine designed to overwhelm even the most advanced integrated air and missile defence.

Those figures reflect June 2025 capability. Iran has used the intervening months to address vulnerabilities the conflict exposed - investing in layered air and drone defences, dispersing assets to hardened underground facilities, and expanding its short- and medium-range missile inventory. The 12-day war functioned, in effect, as a live-fire diagnostic. The arsenal Washington would face today is not the one it studied eight months ago.

There is a related assumption that requires scrutiny: the effectiveness of missile defence. Israel claimed an 86 per cent interception rate against ballistic missiles during the 12-day war - but that figure counts only missiles deemed “threatening,” excluding those that failed in flight or fell short. Of 574 missiles launched, combined US and Israeli interceptors destroyed 201 - roughly 35 per cent. Forty-nine struck populated areas, military bases and energy infrastructure. Peer-reviewed analysis of earlier conflicts suggests a significant share of missile “failures” reflect airframe instability in older systems, not successful interception - a distinction headline figures obscure. If Iran deploys newer, more stable airframes with improved guidance - a process Russian technical assistance is reportedly accelerating - the proportion reaching their targets will rise, not fall. Western planning that assumes layered missile defence will absorb the majority of incoming fire may be operating on a false premise.

The Strait of Hormuz carries approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day - roughly 20 per cent of global supply - through shipping lanes that are, at their narrowest, entirely within Iranian and Omani territorial waters. Iran conducted live-fire exercises in the strait this month and temporarily closed sections of it. Its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capability - naval mines, fast attack craft, cruise missiles, drones, submarines, and the 1,000-kilometre range Abu Mahdi anti-ship missile - is purpose-built for this geography.

Western planning assumptions tend to treat Hormuz disruption as a graduated escalatory step - something Iran might resort to if cornered. Iranian strategic doctrine suggests otherwise. Tehran distinguishes sharply between conflicts it can absorb - the 12-day war with Israel, where the strait was left open because the threat was judged containable - and an existential confrontation with the United States, where closure of the strait and destruction of Persian Gulf energy infrastructure would be an immediate defensive response, not a measure of last resort. If that distinction is accurate, the models currently informing Western contingency planning may be calibrated for the wrong scenario.

A prolonged disruption would send oil prices above $100 per barrel. No alternative supply sources exist at the scale required to compensate. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that up to 18 million barrels per day of non-Iranian crude could be throttled or halted. The inflationary consequences for a global economy already under strain would be severe - and would hit Gulf states, East Asian importers, and European consumers simultaneously.

The carrier question is no longer theoretical. A US military official told the New York Times that forces could protect assets and allies for “a limited engagement” but expressed concern about readiness for “a prolonged and expansive conflict.” Current carrier-based operations can sustain high-intensity sorties for approximately two weeks before maintenance, pilot fatigue and munitions expenditure degrade capability. Shore-based assets extend the window, but Reuters reported in February that the US military is planning for “weeks-long” operations - not months - and that a prolonged campaign would pose significantly increased risks. Independent strategic analysis assesses that the current configuration cannot sustain expeditionary operations beyond approximately one month without major reinforcement that has not been deployed and shows no sign of being deployed.

The arithmetic of attrition favours Iran. A state of 88 million people with dispersed industrial capacity and external supply lines from Russia and China can sustain a prolonged missile exchange in ways that a concentrated, export-dependent economy like Israel’s - or an expeditionary force operating at the end of extended logistics chains - cannot. Iran’s asymmetric doctrine is designed to deny Washington the escalation dominance that precision strike planning assumes.

What the Gulf is telling Washington

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Egypt and Türkiye have all lobbied against military action. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Iranian President Pezeshkian directly that Saudi Arabia would not allow its airspace or territory to be used for strikes. The UAE adopted an identical position.

Their reluctance is not merely political. The Persian Gulf’s southern states are structurally exposed in ways that make hosting offensive operations against Iran a direct threat to regime survival. Concentrated populations, critical energy infrastructure within range of Iran’s short- and medium-range missile arsenal, and economies dependent on the free flow of hydrocarbons through waters Iran can credibly threaten - these are not states that can absorb retaliatory strikes and continue to function. Their refusal to facilitate American operations reflects a vulnerability assessment, not a diplomatic preference.

This is not solidarity with Tehran. The Sunni Gulf states have no affection for the Iranian Shi’ite regime. What they fear is the aftermath. Analysts close to Riyadh have been explicit: regime collapse in Iran would not produce stability. It would produce a political and security vacuum that no regional actor has the tools to manage, the emergence of armed groups, massive displacement, and - perhaps most revealingly - “absolute Israeli supremacy,” which Gulf capitals regard as a strategic imbalance, not a factor of stability.

When the littoral states most exposed to Iranian retaliation refuse to facilitate American operations, that is not diplomatic hedging. It is a strategic assessment delivered in the most consequential terms available.

Netanyahu’s incentive

One variable receives insufficient attention in London: Israel’s active role in shaping Washington’s calculus. Netanyahu has lobbied persistently and publicly for military action against Iran - before, during, and after the 12-day war. His incentives are not difficult to parse. An ICC arrest warrant constrains his international movement. His coalition depends on security-hawk partners who regard Iranian nuclear latency as an existential threat. A US-led campaign against Tehran would validate the logic of the June 2025 strikes, reaffirm Israel’s position as Washington’s indispensable regional partner, and - not incidentally - consume the political oxygen that might otherwise fuel pressure on Israeli settlements, Gaza reconstruction, or judicial accountability.

None of this is hidden. Netanyahu has said openly that Iran must not be allowed to retain any enrichment capability. His definition of an acceptable deal is narrower than Washington’s - possibly narrower than any outcome Tehran could accept. The risk is straightforward: if the Geneva track produces terms Washington can accept but Netanyahu cannot, a unilateral strike, an intelligence provocation, or a public ultimatum could foreclose the diplomatic space before ink meets paper.

Gulf capitals understand this. It is one reason their opposition to military action is so firm. The question is whether Whitehall has gamed the scenario in which the diplomatic track collapses not because Tehran walks away, but because a third party decides that diplomacy succeeding is worse than diplomacy failing.

Three questions for Whitehall

Britain has positioned itself in a familiar posture: supportive of diplomacy, non-committal on military action, quietly deploying assets for defensive contingencies. Around six F-35s to Cyprus. Four Typhoons to Qatar. The Attorney General has reportedly advised that UK participation in pre-emptive strikes would be unlawful. Starmer has blocked US use of RAF bases. The government declined to join Operation Midnight Hammer last June and has not changed its legal position since.

This is defensible as far as it goes. It does not go far enough. Three questions demand answers:

First, intelligence alignment. Has Britain conducted - or requested - an independent all-source assessment of Iran’s nuclear status that goes beyond accepting the US intelligence community’s own contested findings? The question is not academic. Britain has recent and painful experience of what follows when independent intelligence assessment is subordinated to a political case for war. If the justification for potential conflict rests on a nuclear threat that America’s own agencies cannot agree exists, what is the UK intelligence community’s independent judgement? If it aligns with the DIA’s assessment, ministers should say so. Silence is not neutrality. It is acquiescence by default.

Second, Hormuz stress-testing. Has the Treasury, in concert with the Department for Energy Security and the Ministry of Defence, conducted serious scenario planning for a sustained closure or disruption of the Strait of Hormuz? Not the cursory exercises that follow every Gulf tension, but genuine stress-testing of the UK’s energy supply chain, refining capacity and strategic reserve adequacy for a disruption lasting weeks rather than days? The UK imported over 40 per cent of its total energy needs in 2024, with domestic production in accelerating decline.

Third, the regime change question. Does Britain have a position on regime change in Iran? Not the polite formulation - “we support the Iranian people’s aspirations” - but an actual policy judgement on whether the forcible removal of the Mullahs serves British strategic interests, and what obligations would follow. If Washington pursues that objective, the UK will face an immediate binary: support or oppose. The current posture of constructive ambiguity will not survive contact with that decision. And it would arrive at a moment when the bilateral relationship is already under serious strain - the RAF basing refusal, Starmer’s Beijing visit, unresolved tensions over Chagos and trade. Downing Street has limited political capital with this White House. Spending it on a public break over Iran would carry costs that extend well beyond the Middle East.

The defence paradox

There is an irony in how the crisis registers in markets. BAE Systems reported record results in February - order backlog of £83.6 billion, operating profit up 12 per cent, share price up more than 50 per cent over the past year. The CEO described a “new era of defence spending.” Starmer has indicated that Britain’s 3 per cent of GDP defence target could be brought forward - the same aspiration the SDR hedged with “if economic conditions allowed,” and which, as we noted following Rubio’s Munich address, the Treasury has so far declined to fund beyond the existing £73.5 billion settlement. Defence stocks price in the headline. The fiscal reality behind it is less encouraging.

Defence stocks thrive on the threat of conflict. The companies that build the systems are rewarded; the strategic environment that makes those systems necessary grows more dangerous. This is not hypocrisy - it is structural. The perverse incentives it creates are real and the policy community tends to look past them.

The practical questions are more granular. If the US strikes Iran and the UK declines to participate, what are the implications for basing arrangements - not just Diego Garcia and Fairford, which Trump has already flagged publicly, but the broader architecture of US-UK defence cooperation? What happens to F-35 programme participation and technology transfer if London is perceived as an unreliable partner? How does NATO’s southern flank absorb a Middle Eastern conflict when the alliance is already stretched between the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the High North? And what does rising UK defence expenditure buy if the strategic environment deteriorates faster than procurement can adapt?

Export revenue is the other dimension. The Gulf states purchasing British defence equipment are the same states refusing to facilitate American operations against Iran. A conflict that destabilises those relationships - or, worse, produces a regional arms race in its aftermath - would scramble the commercial assumptions underpinning British defence industrial strategy for a generation.

Our assessment

On balance, a deal remains narrowly more likely than war - though the margin has thinned considerably since January and the trend is not encouraging. Three factors still favour a negotiated outcome. First, the domestic political costs of another Middle Eastern conflict are real, even for this president; midterm positioning, inflationary risk, and the memory of Iraq constrain action in ways that White House rhetoric does not acknowledge. Second, Iran’s bargaining position is genuinely weak. Sanctions, a damaged nuclear programme, significantly degraded proxy networks, and persistent - if ambiguous - internal unrest mean Tehran has powerful incentives to accept terms it would have rejected two years ago. A regime facing this level of strategic pressure does not need to be bombed into compliance; it needs a face-saving exit. Third, Gulf mediation is active, serious, and backed by states whose cooperation Washington requires for any military operation it might contemplate. The Geneva track, for all its fragility, has not collapsed. These are not trivial counterweights. 

But the margin is thin, and the variables that could tip it are not fully within any single actor’s control. A miscalculation during the military buildup. A provocation by hardliners on either side. A proposal from Tehran that falls short of Washington’s shifting requirements. An Israeli action that forecloses diplomatic space. The pattern from June 2025 - deadline, then strikes - remains the most relevant precedent.

What should concern British policymakers is not the probability but the preparation. On the evidence available, the UK is positioned to react to either outcome. It is not positioned to shape either one. That gap - between influence and exposure - is where strategic risk accumulates. And at present, few in Whitehall appear to be measuring it.