Should the world be terrified of the Ayatollah's vengeance?

“I will do such things, — what they are, yet I know not,” the king rages in Act II, Scene 4 of King Lear. “But they shall be the terrors of the earth.” Just so might the Supreme Leader of

Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, have vented his fury over the death of his favourite, Qasem Soleimani, at the Islamic Republic’s councils of war. His minions already pose as the terrors of the

earth. But should we be terrified of them?

Dire threats have been issued, aircraft and warships dispatched, the oil price has plummeted. Battalions of the world’s media have been preparing for war. The crowds in Iran have been

whipped up into a frenzy by the mullahs. At the general’s funeral, at least 50 mourners were crushed to death. 

Exactly the same thing had happened at the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. On that occasion, eight mourners were killed and in the chaos, the corpse fell out of the coffin.

Evidently nobody in the regime thought to prevent a repetition of such loss of life — or indeed of an appalling and undignified spectacle. This is indeed what Lear calls “hysterica passio”.

And now the much-vaunted Iranian missiles — not unlike the V1 and V2, as Hitler called his “revenge weapons”, or Vergeltungswaffen — have been fired at two Allied bases in Iraq. There appear

to have been no casualties. “All is well!” tweeted Donald Trump. “So far, so good!” 

On the same grim day, a Ukrainian airliner crashed just after taking off from Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran. Most of the 176 passengers, all of whom were killed, were Iranian. The

authorities blame the pilot, but in such a febrile atmosphere this disaster seems quite a coincidence. What really happened? We don’t yet know and, given the secretive nature of this regime,

we may never know.

Meanwhile, the world waits to see what both sides will do now. The answer may be: not very much. The President has made his point, that attacks on Americans never go unpunished, and has no

need to escalate the conflict any further. 

The Iranians have now retaliated, albeit to little effect, but will be wary of provoking the US. Their appetite for vengeance will not be slaked until blood — preferably American blood — has

been shed. But their retribution will probably take a more devious form: hostage-taking, international terrorism, perhaps assassination. It is pointless to speculate; Iran has proved far

more adept at these dark arts than at conventional warfare. We in the West must rely on the excellence of our organs of national security.

Here in Britain, scrutiny has fallen on the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace. He gave a competent performance at the despatch box in the Commons this week, but speculation surrounds his past

role as chairman of the British-Iran Parliamentary Group from 2006 to 2014. Is the man responsible for our armed forces “soft” on the Islamic Republic? As against these dubious connections,

Wallace is a former Guards officer and served for three years as Minister of State for Security. This background implies that he is trusted by the intelligence services as well as the

military and, presumably, the Prime Minister. We can only hope that their confidence is well-placed.

 If for any reason Wallace falls short, Boris Johnson could do worse than to reinstate Penny Mordaunt, who was sacked last July for no reason other than that he wished to reward a supporter

in the Tory leadership contest. She was by all accounts popular at the MoD. If it came to war with Iran, there would be no doubts about her loyalties.

Whatever form the confrontation with the Iranians may take, Britain is awkwardly placed. Despite, or perhaps because of, its appalling record on human rights, terrorism and warmongering,

Tehran has considerable influence in China, Russia, at the UN and, perhaps more surprisingly, among our allies in Europe. Germany and France both enjoy closer economic ties with Iran than

the UK. Even so, it was striking that sinister images of Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in the crosshairs were displayed on the streets of Tehran alongside those of Donald Trump and

Binyamin Netanyahu. There is a role for the Prime Minister as the advocate of a measured response rather than of appeasement. Above all, he has the ear of the President. Iran is the first

serious test of his premiership, but if he plays his cards right, Boris Johnson could emerge from this crisis as the pragmatic but principled leader of Europe.

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