So it appears the mullahs in Tehran have finally done the sensible thing and decided to test the tensile strength of Israel's Iron Dome with what I can only assume was a guided tour of the Holy Land's finest civilian infrastructure. The reports are garbled, the blood pressure in Whitehall is rising faster than the Thames at high tide, and our Foreign Office mandarins have collectively discovered the meaning of the word 'emboldened.' Apparently, someone in a very expensive suit has decided that what this situation truly requires is a spot of 'reinforced deterrence.' Which is diplomatic shorthand for 'we're going to look very stern and perhaps deploy a particularly pointed paragraph in the next G7 communiqué.' Because nothing deters a regime armed with precision missiles and a theological grudge quite like a strongly worded memo.
But let us not be flippant. This is serious. Iran, that perennial bogeyman of British foreign policy, has apparently become so emboldened by the West's recent collective display of spine made of blancmange that they've decided to test the boundaries of 'acceptable escalation' in the most literal way possible. The Israeli Defence Forces, bless them, have confirmed that the majority of these projectiles were intercepted. Which is rather like saying a storm was mostly kept outside if you ignore the twigs in your hair and the missing roof tiles. The fact that it happened, that Iran felt confident enough to push the button, is a seismic shift in the tectonics of Middle Eastern nonsense.
Our Prime Minister, no doubt briefed between sips of Earl Grey and a furtive glance at the opinion polls, has called for 'calm heads.' Which is code for 'we have absolutely no idea what to do but we must look like we're doing something.' The Foreign Secretary has been dispatched to the region with a briefcase full of platitudes and a mandate to look worried. In London, the Foreign Office has activated the COBRA committee which is basically a group of extremely important people sitting in a room agreeing that the situation is extremely serious while someone provides biscuits.
Meanwhile, the streets of Tel Aviv are empty. The citizens have retreated to bomb shelters, possibly wondering why the Iranians always seem to schedule their missile barrages to coincide with peak hour at the coffee shops. And in Tehran, the regime is no doubt celebrating this flex of their military muscle, conveniently ignoring the small matter of their economy being held together by prayers and cheap oil.
So what does 'reinforced deterrence' actually mean? In the lexicon of British diplomacy, it usually translates to 'we will very firmly tell them to stop.' Which is rather like scolding a hurricane for being a bit drafty. The reality is that the UK's ability to project hard power in the region is roughly equivalent to a stern glare from a pensioner at a bus stop. Our armed forces have been hollowed out by successive budget cuts, our intelligence networks are probably still recovering from the last time we tried to find the exit in the Middle East, and our primary contribution to regional security seems to be selling arms to Saudi Arabia and looking concerned.
But let us not despair. For in this modern world of simulacra and spectacle, the appearance of deterrence may be enough. As long as our politicians look suitably grim on the news, as long as the diplomatic cables are sufficiently terse, and as long as the BBC's correspondent can find a suitably dramatic location to stand in front of, we might just bluster our way through. After all, the Iranians must know that if they push too far, we might be forced to do the one thing that truly strikes fear into the heart of any regime: we might write a strongly worded editorial in the Financial Times.
