Middle East: Groundhog Day

By Richard North - July 19, 2026

It seems rather odd that, with all hell breaking loose in Iran again, and the conflict spreading as far afield as Jordan – where two US soldiers have been killed and one is missing after an Iranian attack on a US base – so little prominent coverage is being given to these events in the British legacy media.

This is particularly the case as the attack on the US base seems to have special and worrying features. Intelligence briefings suggest that Tehran bypassed advanced American air defence shields by launching high-speed, hyper-manoeuvrable ballistic missiles.

Iran is said to have successfully adapted its attack methodologies to exploit vulnerabilities in Western missile defence interception protocols. By deploying advanced ballistic missiles that travel at extreme speeds and execute unpredictable, erratic manoeuvres during their terminal phase, the regime has been able to penetrate the base’s defensives.

This highly calculated technological breach, we are told, marks a dangerous escalation in the regime’s offensive capabilities, proving that Tehran is actively refining its arsenal to inflict maximum casualties on American personnel.

Without such detail, though, all we are getting is a sense of déjà vu which confers an element of sameness to the war which makes reporting seem repetitive. And that’s not entirely unreasonable as there is certainly a feel of Groundhog Day and the seemingly tit-for-tat strikes which are showing no signs of ending.

Unsurprisingly therefore, the idea of a “forever war” is very much in the mind of Jake Wallis Simons, writing for the Telegraph, articulated under the headline: “Trump is sliding into a forever war with Iran”.

Simons, though, attributes the continuing conflict to Trump, his sub-head telling us that: “The incompetence of the US president has allowed the conflict to descend into rolling coercive containment”, which he puts down to the US failure to pursue its war objectives, in particular the unspoken aim of achieving regime change.

Washington thus finds itself locked in an undignified death clinch with the regime, which maintains a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the US with little recourse but to expand the scope and intensity of its strikes, now (as of Saturday night) in their eighth consecutive day.

According to one reliable source, the strikes – carried out by a combination of carrier-borne aircraft, drones and warships – have been bridges, the Shahid Mirzaei tunnel, and infrastructure from Bandar Abbas and Chabahar to Isfahan, with the aim of isolating the port city of Bandar Abbas and disrupting its ability to support attacks on commercial shipping.

As roughly half the country’s trade passes through its port, millions will likely be plunged into destitution which leads Simons to ask whether the military advantage justifies the civilian suffering – a key measure of legality under the laws of armed conflict.

It is “questionable at best”, he asserts, reminding us that the last leader to bomb that same infrastructure was Saddam Hussein in the 1980s which, Simons says, is “not a good look for Donald Trump”.

Like much of the low-key British (and European coverage, Simons is downbeat. The current strikes, he argues, smack of desperation.

What began as a devastating assault by the most fearsome military machine in human history has devolved into an inexorable war of attrition against a far weaker yet more cunning foe, against the backdrop of what he calls “comically mishandled negotiations”.

He characterises the Iranian regime as one which, for months, been groaning under the weight of assassinations, surgical strikes, economic crisis and wave upon wave of tactical military defeats. With its monopoly on domestic violence intact, however, it has resisted pressure internally; and with its domination of Hormuz, it tweaks Trump’s nose while holding a gun to the head of the global economy.

On the American side, we are advised, the pain is also growing. Not only are stockpiles of missile interceptors running low across the region, but stocks of US advanced offensive weapons and munitions are likewise worryingly depleted.

Numbers of Tomahawks, for example, he says, are not expected to be fully replenished for five years – an issue with wider significance as complex weapons systems can take years to manufacture. This has an effect on the bigger picture: the longer the conflict drags on, the weaker Washington’s deterrence against Beijing and Moscow.

Strategically, therefore, Simons has Trump facing a fork in the road. On the one hand, he could choose to destroy this regime, whatever the cost in blood and treasure.

Economic warfare, such as targeting oil refineries, terminals and export infrastructure, would form part of that strategy, providing a pivot away from mere maritime suppression. Such a course would mean alliance building with armed opposition groups and defectors inside Iran, as well as preparing to police post-collapse stability.

But he doesn’t see Trump, with the mid-term elections approaching, going for that. But the alternative would involve another negotiated deal carrying the same kind of humiliations – unconscionable American concessions on everything from missiles to proxies, combined with promises of hundreds of billions of dollars – that we saw in the June memorandum. And that did not exactly work well.

So, we have an impasse. Trump defaults to rolling coercive containment. With neither side willing – America – or able – Iran – to inflict the coup de grâce, they fall into a loop of attrition.

Tehran tests the agreement; Washington retaliates against strategic military capabilities and civilian infrastructure; Tehran hits Gulf states, military bases and shipping in the Strait; mediators stitch together another temporary pause. It is from this analysis that Simons gets his “forever war”, and he’s uncompromising about the “incompetence of the very president who vowed to end them”.

Elsewhere, it is difficult to glean any views that might be more optimistic. The Guardian homes in on the mid-term elections, suggesting that Trump appears to be flirting with electoral disaster in re-stoking a war that is already unpopular with voters – not least for its inflationary impact on fuel and living costs.

The paper cites Curt Mills, executive editor of the American Conservative, a magazine promoting isolationist foreign policy goals favoured by Trump’s “American first” supporters. He says: “There’s basically no timeline in which this makes any sense for preserving [Republicans’] midterm performance”.

Mills goes on to say: “I think it’s a total loser. It’s evidence that Trump doesn’t really care about the midterms. He’s like Icarus with the sun with this stuff – it seems to be a personal vendetta with the Iranians”.

The US press, on the other hand, seems to be holding its counsel – editorials are thin on the ground at the moment. But we do see the New York Times reporting that the US strikes are leaving Iranians “isolated and scared”.

The report features Ahvaz, the capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan Province about 500 miles northwest of the Strait of Hormuz, where residents are suffering from the noise and shock of the bombing, even though it is directed at military targets.

Although, even in peacetime, power outages are not rare, now they occur every day, sometimes lasting more than two hours. And when there is no power, water is cut off. Recently, temperatures in the city have reached as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

For all that, local shops are still stocked, but they are largely empty of customers, because people have little money. Iran’s economy, long in malaise, has got even worse during the war, with skyrocketing food prices and companies forced to lay off workers. One resident, speaking for many, says: “The situation has become unbearable”.

What the effect of this will be is difficult to predict. So far, the regime – as Simons points out – has resisted pressure and still appears to have a firm grip on power. But, in such cases, while appearing solid and monolithic from the outside, when such regimes do collapse, they tend to do so, first slowly and then quickly.

Recent news of the regime mounting large-scale security operations in Kurdish regions and in the Baloch and Ahwazi regions could indicate strength, but could just as easily be taken as signs that the ruling elites are losing their grip and running scared.

Whether or not expectations of an internal uprising are realistic, it is probably true to say that only this can save Trump from his “forever war”. Unless this happens, it seems we are condemned to a Middle East version of Groundhog Day.