Donald Trump only has “a succession of bad options” as he tries in vain to end the war in Iran, according to a BBC expert.
Jeremy Bowen, the corporation’s international affairs editor, said the “reckless” US president only has himself to blame for the predicament he finds himself in.
American jets carried out their 11th consecutive night of bombing Iranian targets in retaliation for attacks on ships using the Strait of Hormuz.
That is despite both sides agreeing a ceasefire in April which was meant to pave the way for an end to the conflict, which began with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February.
On Radio 4’s Today programme, Bowen said there were now no good outcomes for Trump, despite his repeated claims to have already won the war.
And he even raised the spectre of the Iraq war in the early 2000s, which led to the deaths of more than 4,000 US troops and is seen as President George W Bush’s greatest foreign policy disaster.
He said: “Trump now has a succession of bad options caused by his reckless decision to go to war.
“He can escalate, that won’t bring victory and could bring a lot of disruption and trouble.
“If there is a return to negotiations, which you could argue is the only sensible thing, that would require concessions to Iran which would show the costs of America’s strategic defeat, which has been caused by his reckless decision to go to war.
“All military experts would say the only way to really secure and open the Strait of Hormuz by force is a major land operation which will be immensely risky, would require probably hundreds of thousands of troops, wouldn’t happen.
“Don’t forget Iran is four times the size of Iraq and remember how well the invasion of Iraq went, when the Americans did that back in 2003.”
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