Following the European coverage of the war in Iran, one can’t avoid concluding that the US-Israeli operation is a fiasco on a monumental scale – Gallipoli, Vietnam and Iraq rolled into one.

“It’s a mistake that previous presidents have made in Iraq and Vietnam,” a BBC host recently posited during a chat with John Simpson, the British broadcaster’s octogenarian éminence grise.

“In Vietnam in particular,” Simpson chimed in. “It was in Vietnam that the assumption that millions of tonnes of bombs just make people surrender. Well, I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It doesn’t happen that way.”

If only those silly Americans and their megalomaniacal president had thought to consult Simpson, who just a month into the air campaign, managed to conflate the Iran war with the US’s 20-year engagement in a ground war in Vietnam.

Not to be outdone, The Economist recently declared on its cover: “Advantage Iran”.

Some advantage.

Imagine for a moment that Iran had succeeded in taking out Donald Trump on the first day of the war – and in the days that followed the heads of the CIA and FBI, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and leaders of every branch of the military while also sinking America’s navy and destroying its air force, triggering widespread desertions.

Then suppose that the Iranians managed to also destroy most of the US’s arsenal of ballistic missiles, the factories that produce them, and most of America’s nuclear capability. And consider that after flying thousands of sorties to achieve these goals, the Iranians lost just 13 service members and a few planes.

It’s a safe bet that those in the commentariat currently arguing that Iran has the upper hand would not be so bullish about America’s prospects in this alternate scenario. Indeed, the same people who couldn’t even find Iran on a map a month earlier would almost certainly be predicting (and no doubt celebrating) the ‘Great Satan’s’ demise.

Yes, you say, but what about the Strait of Hormuz? Iran’s success in shutting off the strait to tanker traffic proves the talking heads’ central point that all Iran must do to win is survive, does it not?

It is a seductive argument. So much so, that a venerable New York-based newspaper ran an op-ed this week arguing that the mullahs aren’t just winning, but the “war is turning Iran into a major world power”.

Considering that Iran has neither the capacity to control its skies, much less identify all of the corpses piling up on the battlefield, the notion that the regime is poised to become a world power is rooted more in the realm of fantasy than reality.

There is no question that opening the Strait of Hormuz by force would be complex, but does anyone really doubt the US military’s ability to do it?

It’s worth remembering that the Iranian economy was already on life support before the war started. Take away Iran’s oil by seizing Kharg Island or erecting a naval blockade, and it would only be a matter of time before the economy collapsed altogether.

How else do you explain that Europe isn’t celebrating the fact that the US has taken on the burden of eradicating the Iranian nuclear threat once and for all? Unlike the US, Europe is already within range of Iran’s ballistic missiles. Does anyone really believe a Russia-friendly, nuclear-armed Iran wouldn’t have used its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz to pressure Europe?

Instead of denying the US flyover rights and blocking Washington from using its European bases for the war, Spain, the UK and the like should have done everything in their power to make the US-Israeli operation a success.

No, not to ‘save’ NATO, but for the simple reason that Europe would be the biggest beneficiary of a defanged Iran. Consider a world in which Iran’s oil and gas could flow again to Europe free of sanctions, a world in which European companies were once again able to conduct business in a peaceful Iran, a country of 90 million in sore need of investment. It would be a boon – for both sides.

Or rather could have been. True to form, Europe stayed on the sidelines, having convinced themselves that Trump is mad. Now, amid a fragile, dysfunctional ceasefire, European leaders are angry that Trump didn’t put more American lives at risk to force open the Strait of Hormuz.

The conventional wisdom in Europe holds that because Trump didn’t achieve regime change after a month and petrol prices have risen to levels not seen since way back in 2022, the whole effort is (as they predicted from the beginning!) a disaster of historic dimensions.

At least they’re right about one thing: this is a disaster – just not for the reasons Europe thinks.