“The world should be behind Israel”: Richard Kemp

A British retired army officer has described Israel’s military successes in Iran as ‘masterful’ and ‘unique’, and called for the rest of the world to give their support.

Richard Kemp, who arrived in Israel just two days before the war broke out, spoke exclusively to TPS-IL to give his thoughts on the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.

On the bombs from Iran, he said: “I have been in Tel Aviv the last couple of nights. It is a chilling, deliberate message from Iran – if you think about the few missiles that have got through – if you imagine one of those was nuclear, it would have killed thousands of people.

“As we know from intelligence and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA, Iran was on the verge of that. Israel’s actions were in defence, not only of itself, but of the world, because Iran having nuclear weapons would threaten not only the region, but also the rest of the world.

“So the rest of the world can be thankful to Israel, which has been willing to stick it’s neck out. No other nation has done so.”

Speaking about Israel’s military planning and execution in Iran, he said: “It was a breathtaking feat. No other army in the world could have done this. It is the result of decades of careful planning.

“To coordinate something of this complexity is extremely hard, to pull off the precision attack they’ve been able to do and the covert operation from inside Iran – none of that happened from an overnight plan.

“Israel has been ready for this for a while. It was a masterful and unique operation.”

Asked what he thinks the war will look like in the near and further future, he said: “At this stage, it is hard to tell. I don’t think even the chief of staff at the IDF will know.

“They have target lists to hit, and once they get through that, then they will carry out assessments. Until then, they won’t know how long things will last.”

He added: “I don’t see it as a long-term operation, I see this lasting only days or weeks.

“They will be able to measure their success by attacks from Iran. As they lessen, the more they show they are weakening, and it will become a one-way fight. In fact, it already is.

“The other elements are that we have to see what happens in Iran. There have already been street protests the last few days. Already, the regime has been weakened.

“The more the people of Iran see that, that may well lead to them taking the courage to rise up. We could see the fall of the regime. It is almost inevitable.

“But generally, it is virtually impossible to predict how the war will unfold. Things can go wrong at any moment.

“I do think the rest of the countries in the Middle East are mostly behind Israel, no matter what they say publicly; and the West know the dangers not only to the region, but to themselves.

“I will say that the rest of the world should be behind Israel. They’ve shown they have the courage to take the [Iranian] regime on. No one else has done that.

“I think the UK has been pretty weak in its response, doing things like calling for Israel to step back. There are times that is very inappropriate and one of those times is certainly now.

“It is in all our interest to stick up for Israel here and not do things like call for Israel to back down.”

Israel launched preemptive strikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the early hours of Friday morning, citing intelligence that the regime in Tehran had reached “a point of no return” in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

According to intelligence, Iran has developed the capacity to rapidly enrich uranium and assemble up to nine nuclear weapons. The regime in Iran has publicly stated that it calls for the destruction of Israel.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time of the launch of attacks against Iran: “As Prime Minister, I’ve made it clear time and time again, Israel will never allow those who call for our annihilation to develop the means to achieve that goal.

“Tonight, Israel backs those words with action. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. We struck at the heart of Iran’s nuclear weaponisation program.

“We targeted Iran’s main enrichment facility. We targeted Iran’s leading nuclear scientists working on the uranium bomb.”