The Telegraph Opinion - It will take Iran decades to recover from this war - Colonel Richard Kemp - Thu, April 9, 2026 at 3:25 PM GMT+3

 The Telegraph

Opinion

It will take Iran decades to recover from this war

Colonel Richard Kemp

Thu, April 9, 2026 at 3:25 PM GMT+3

5 min read

The aftermath of a US-Israeli strike on a residential building in Tehran - Majid Saeedi/2026 Getty Images

Reeling under the most intense American and Israeli assaults, the Iranian regime has capitulated. In the face of Donald Trump’s threats, warning that the worst is yet to come, it has dropped its cast-iron demand that the Strait of Hormuz would not be reopened until the US committed to ending the war, cancelling sanctions and paying reparations.

That has been conveniently ignored by many Western commentators who would have portrayed the two-week ceasefire as a defeat for Trump, no matter how it was framed. It has also been quietly forgotten by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders now calling the shots in Tehran, who would themselves have declared victory whatever the outcome.

It’s very telling that so many anti-Trumpers in the West, including some political leaders, seem to be playing the same tune as Iran’s dictators.

This ceasefire – even if it holds and the Iranians uncharacteristically stick to their word – is unlikely to be the end of the conflict. Trump will not accept Iran’s new list of demands, however watered down they may be. Since his first term, he has been playing hardball with the ayatollahs. He started by eliminating Qassim Soleimani, their top IRGC terrorist commander, cancelled Barack Obama’s deeply flawed nuclear deal and returned to the maximum-pressure sanctions regime.

Last June he backed Israel’s defensive war on Iran and then reinforced it with devastating strikes against its nuclear facilities. Finally we came to the all-out joint offensive with Israel that started a few weeks ago. Despite decades of repeated threats and lethal attacks against the US and its allies, including British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump was the first American president with the steel to directly attack Iran.

For a regime that prioritises its toxic ideology far above the good of the country, it is highly unlikely that the IRGC will go along with Trump’s red lines either. These include ending their nuclear project, ceasing their ballistic missile programme, terminating their ring of terrorist proxies and surrendering stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.

None of that seems to add up to a permanent end of hostilities. But if the war is not actually resumed, Iran will be a different country from that of just six weeks ago, as Prime Minister Netanyahu recently affirmed. It has never been so weak. What remained of its air defence system after the twelve-day war last June has been shattered. In the face of thousands of American and Israeli combat sorties, Iran only managed to down two US planes, the crews of which were rescued a few days ago.

Iran’s political and military leadership has been decimated. That includes the supreme leader and several tiers below him, the head of the IRGC, the chief of the armed forces, defence minister, chief of intelligence and the heads of the nuclear weapons development organisation. Many national and local IRGC and police headquarters and bases have been blown apart as well as those of the Basij militia, responsible for repressing Iranian citizens.

Iranian command structure 

The navy and air forces have been largely wiped out, as has much of the country’s defence industry. Vast numbers of rockets, drones, launch sites, storage and manufacturing facilities have been destroyed. Most of the missiles and drones fired by Iran during the war were intercepted. Although it is still able to launch attack projectiles, its armoury, built up over many years, is severely depleted.

Much damage was inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme last June, and further destruction has been sustained in this campaign, including the underground enrichment plant at Natanz and the installation at Bushehr. Iran still retains stocks of highly enriched uranium but it is unlikely to still be capable of transforming this material into viable nuclear weapons, and Trump has suggested Iran is willing to hand it over. We shall see about that.

Commercial and economic damage has been devastating, as have attacks on bridges and other vital military infrastructure. Israeli strikes on the South Pars/Asaluyeh area disabled facilities accounting for 85 per cent of Iran’s petrochemical exports, according to Israel’s defence minister. US attacks on Kharg Island were targeted at military installations not the energy sites themselves, nevertheless this has left Iran’s most important oil export centre vulnerable.

By its own ill-judged actions, Iran has turned itself into an international pariah by lashing out at its neighbours. The Gulf Cooperation Council states – including Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait, previously wary of Iranian aggression – have had their fears violently confirmed and can now be counted among Tehran’s enemies. That includes Qatar, which was perhaps Iran’s best friend in the region until the IRGC launched multiple attacks against it. Likewise, the UAE, which was also attacked, will likely no longer continue to enable Tehran to bypass sanctions.

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Fearful of further uprisings among its own people during the war, the IRGC intensified its campaign of brutal repression and murder. The deterrent effect of these Gestapo tactics has been obvious, but they will not be forgotten among a catalogue of savagery against ordinary Iranians. An internet blackout throughout the campaign intentionally prevented Iranian citizens from comprehending the full extent to which their overlords have been weakened. When they come to understand that, and begin to feel the long-term pain of an economy that may now be beyond recovery, the regime experience even more turbulence than at the beginning of the year.

Whether or not this war restarts, and whether or not the regime continues to hold, much of the damage that has been done so far to Iran’s offensive capabilities can only be fully repaired over decades. Trump is already putting in place measures intended to deter Chinese and Russian support. Meanwhile, Tehran will talk of victory, but in reality their country is no longer a serious regional threat.

Persuasion - Charles Lane - April 13, 2026 - Why, Exactly, Orban Lost

 

	Why, Exactly, Orbán Lost Hungary offers big lessons for those hoping to defeat populism—including the Democrats. Charles Lane Apr 13 ∙ Guest post   READ IN APP   Our next ASK THE AUTHOR on Substack Live will take place in JUST OVER AN HOUR at 12:30pm ET. We’re delighted that John B. Judis will join us to discuss his recent article “What Hegel Knew About Trump,” and to answer your questions. Please click here to join! Peter Magyar on election night, April 12, 2026. (Photo by Ferenc ISZA / AFP via Getty Images.) After 16 years in power, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has suffered a decisive election defeat, one so overwhelming and undeniable that the self-styled tribune of “illiberal” politics conceded to his opponents—the Tisza party led by 45-year-old Péter Magyar—with no effort to resist or overturn the results. Orbán’s defeat is also a setback for the two foreign leaders who had backed him: President Trump had made support for right-wing populists in Europe a key element of his national security strategy and dispatched Vice President Vance to campaign for Orbán days before the election. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, had depended on Orbán to defend his interests within the European Union, most notably by vetoing a pending 90 billion euro aid package for Ukraine. Now Putin’s lost his lawyer in Brussels. It is a watershed moment that opens new possibilities for a more united European front against both Trump and Putin—as well as a fresh start for Hungarians themselves after 16 years of increasingly corrupt and overbearing Orbán rule. Opponents of right-wing populism on both sides of the Atlantic are celebrating the downfall of Orbán, as well they should. Yet they need to learn the right lessons from Magyar’s victory. And the crucial one is that this defeat for illiberalism is not a victory for liberalism—at least not of the progressive variety now increasingly ascendant within, say, Europe’s Green parties or the Democratic Party in the United States. Magyar was a moderate conservative defector from Orbán’s own Fidesz party, which he loyally served—including in a senior official position—until just two years ago. At that point, he quit in protest of one of the government’s myriad scandals. As a candidate, corruption was his signature issue, along with bread-and-butter concerns like the stagnant economy and Hungary’s decrepit health and education systems. Upgrade to paid Meanwhile, he downplayed cultural liberalism—steering clear, for example, of a controversy over a Budapest gay pride parade Orbán tried to suppress. And he co-opted the more popular parts of Orbán’s agenda, such as his tough approach to public safety and the closure of Hungary to asylum seekers. On the campaign trail, Magyar promised to maintain the heavily patrolled border fence Orbán erected to keep out Middle Eastern and South Asian migrants; he even attacked Orbán from the right on migration, proposing to end a program that lets a handful of people from Armenia, Georgia, and the Philippines into the country for short-term work contracts. Hungary’s liberal and progressive parties all but died out during the last two decades. The only party other than Fidesz and Tisza to win seats Sunday was the tiny Our Homeland Movement, which is even more right-wing and nationalist than Fidesz. To be sure, the country’s rightward shift reflected Orbán’s determined efforts to stack the political system in his favor, but that is not the only cause. Many Hungarians were genuinely disenchanted by their left-leaning politicians; many, too, were repelled by the EU’s inability to stem the surge of migration and concerned by unrealistic green energy mandates emanating from Brussels. The potential spillover of war in neighboring Ukraine created additional worry. There is a rough analogy between Hungary in the Orbán era and Israel during the last 15 years of political domination by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latter country’s political center of gravity shifted to the right; the only successful or potentially successful challenges to Netanyahu now come from politicians—some formerly affiliated with his party—who style themselves “right-wing.” Orbán’s On the Ropes. But Don’t Pray for a Miracle Just Yet Dalibor Rohac · Apr 9 Read full story Magyar and his campaign team dealt skillfully with the country’s changed political landscape, understanding that they could depend on the votes of more cosmopolitan, reflexively anti-Orbán, city dwellers, and that the campaign would be won or lost in the traditionally pro-Orbán countryside. Magyar set up “Tisza Islands” across the countryside, a network of over 20,000 volunteers distributed among more than 200 localities—and spent the bulk of his campaign time outside of Budapest and the major cities trying to win over culturally conservative swing voters. So even though the new Hungarian prime minister will enjoy a two-thirds majority in parliament, giving him maximum latitude to govern, he might not shift policy as dramatically as some of those celebrating his win hope. He will keep his promise to move Hungary into closer alignment with the European Union, likely by ending Orbán’s veto of Ukraine aid. It’s in his own interest to reverse Orbán’s stacking of the judiciary with Fidesz loyalists, which could help restore 18 billion euros in aid that the EU froze as a punishment to Orbán. Magyar could nevertheless remain relatively cool toward Ukraine and more resistant to migration than the EU would like. For Brussels, though, the main thing now is to consolidate Hungary as a member of the overall European mainstream. If that means ending the million-euro-per-day fine the EU imposed on Orbán’s government in 2024 for refusing to allow in asylum seekers, so be it. Most EU member states are themselves getting stricter on migration. In the end, Orbán was a better democratic citizen than Trump, conceding defeat and promising to wage a loyal opposition. There will be no Hungarian January 6. Still, after 16 years, Orbán simply wore out his welcome. Too much corruption, too much heavy-handed propaganda, and too much emphasis on his own grandiose role in international affairs alienated the electorate. The soon-to-be former prime minister focused on ideological abstractions such as Christian nationalism and increasingly fanciful conspiracy theories about Ukraine and a “pro-war” Brussels. Like most democratic publics, Hungarians mainly want good government: a robust economy, effective public services, and as little drama as possible in international affairs. Orbán failed to deliver on all fronts. Orbán is Trump’s Immigration Idol Charles Lane · Feb 19 Read full story If that reminds you of how Trump is losing the plot politically as the United States mid-term elections approach—well, it should. Ironically, one of the distractions upon which Trump has expended valuable presidential attention and prestige was Orbán’s re-election, though he ultimately delegated the actual campaigning in Budapest to Vice President JD Vance. This intrusion into another country’s internal affairs accomplished nothing except to damage Vance’s standing as a potential Trump successor in 2028. The outcome in Hungary shows that even a deeply entrenched right-wing populist leader can overplay his hand, and alienate the public, by failing to deliver on issues that most affect daily life. Such a leader is most vulnerable to an opposition that understands the factors that motivated ordinary people to support him in the first place—including the excesses of the liberal left itself. It’s doubtful that Trump will learn very much from this experience. Can the Democrats? Charles Lane is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a columnist for The Free Press.