Ex-CIA Boss: Trump in a Difficult Position in the Iran War, Karma Will Come Soon
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump is trapped between ‘two difficult choices’ after three weeks of war in Iran. He is sending a message of weakness to the world.
This was stated by Leon Panetta, former US Defense Secretary and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to the Guardian.
Panetta, who served in the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, noted that national security officials are well aware of Iran’s capabilities. Tehran is able to create an energy crisis by blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
That scenario is now unfolding, leaving Trump with no way out.
“He tends to be naive about how things can happen,” said Panetta, 87, who oversaw the operation to find and kill Osama bin Laden, in a telephone interview as reported by the Guardian.
Trump’s war began on 28 February with what was expected to be a decisive blow. An Israeli surprise attack killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The US and Israel quickly gained air supremacy. However, as the conflict drags on, that initiative appears to be slipping out of control.
Thirteen US military personnel and, according to Iranian health officials, more than 1,400 Iranian civilians have been killed. Yet attack after attack has failed to topple the Iranian regime.
Khamenei has been replaced by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei. Trump is increasingly struggling to sell the image of the war domestically as oil prices rise.
His popularity in polls is declining further, and the election coalition shows signs of fracturing.
He is angry about media coverage and is sending mixed signals about the war’s objectives or when it will end.
“We ‘replaced’ an old man (Ayatollah Khamenei), a supreme leader who was nearly dying at the time when the Iranian people were ready to take to the streets in the hope that they could finally change their government.
“And instead, today we have a more entrenched regime, we have a younger supreme leader who will be there for a while, and he is far more hardline than the first supreme leader. That didn’t go well.”