Andrew Neil
93.9K posts
@afneil
Columnist for Daily Mail UK and MailOnline USA. @TimesRadio anchor. Former Chairman of The Spectator, Editor Sunday Times, BBC TV anchor, Chairman Sky TV
@afneil Yes, #Trump should just have left these Islamofascists to set about rebuilding their nukes program, to massacre another 40,000 innocent Iranians, to have control over a significant % of the world's oil supplies, and to amasse 1000s more ballistic missiles! 🙄 #TDS #MAGA #IranWar
@afneil @gnuseibeh You sound happy about it. The reality is that the regime is defanged, they got the dog shit bombed out of them, their economy is in shambles and their citizens are FURIOUS. They're days are numbered.
@afneil Except Andrew that the regime always intended to control the Strait of Hormuz. That is the reason they wanted a nuclear weapon rather than nuclear weapons! One would have been enough. They focused on that for 47 years & even more so after Obama naively gave way to them.
You’ve heard it for weeks now: “No clear objective.” “Mission creep.” “U.S. and Israel are in over their heads.” “Iran is holding strong.” Watch the footage again. Then ask yourself if any of that matches reality. What you are looking at is not a stalemate. It is not a drawn-out exchange. It is not two equal sides trading blows. It is the systematic dismantling of a nation-state’s military architecture. Air defenses collapsed. Command and control degraded. Missile infrastructure targeted and reduced. Strategic sites hit repeatedly, at will. This is what dominance looks like. The narrative that the U.S. and Israel “failed to define victory” only works if you ignore what actually happened on the ground. Because in operational terms, the objectives are clear: • Iran’s ability to defend its own airspace was broken • Its capacity to project missile force was severely degraded • Critical military and nuclear infrastructure was set back in a measurable, lasting way That is not ambiguity. That is outcome. There is a difference between political messaging and battlefield reality. Politically, you can spin this however you want. You can say it wasn’t enough. You can argue about what comes next. But you cannot look at the scale, the tempo, and the results of what you see here and honestly claim that Iran “held its ground.” It didn’t. It was penetrated, dismantled, and set back in ways that will take years to rebuild, if it can rebuild at all. This video doesn’t just show strikes. It shows the gap between the story being told and the reality on the ground. And that gap is getting harder to hide.
You can’t deny this is a magnificent design
@afneil He has a point @afneil have you actually seen any evidence that this occurred, or is it just western propaganda. Tell a lie often & loud enough so people believe it, no?
@afneil You seriously believe Iran could murder thousands, get rid of the bodies in 4 months without anyone recording it? Still creating a narrative Andrew
@afneil The same Iran who has an entire national department to check the dress and behaviour of women. Who rapes, tortures and publicly hangs teenagers for the crime of showing too much hair? That Iran, shaping policy on women & human rights, worldwide?
@ianpayn @afneil True - it's typical political posturing. Anyone into politics knows that Labour are in the throes of a vitally important Defence Review. They will look at things like; Future threat Evolving tactics (eg drones) New technology Manpower And of course the big one - affordability.
@afneil What on earth could Labour have done about it in less than 2 yeses? You seem to be writing what the readers of the Daily Fail want to read rather than facts that put the blame at the door of whom many of those would’ve noted for.
This is the same column we’ve seen a hundred times—strong on urgency, weak on reality. You can’t rebuild military capability, industry, or national resilience on a news cycle timeline. These are multi-year processes, not political quick fixes. Criticism is fair. Pretending it should already be “done” just isn’t serious analysis.
@pcl100 @afneil He either doesn't know, but being a journalist, he should. Or, he does know but stating facts won't support his narrative.
@afneil You do know we have a Tory government defence. It takes 10 years to approve design build and commission a complex warship. As with most public services the Tories spent 14 years hollowing out almost every public service. Impossible to replace in 22 months 🤔
@afneil I read that over lunch you debated the ERM as an anti inflationary policy with John Major. He was animated and said he needed to cure the disease. You responded that he was killing the patient. Did this happen? I’ve been using it in A level econ for 20 years. !!
