A Cork expert on American military history feels that the war between the US\/Israel and Iran is turning into \u201cone of the biggest American strategic failures in history.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Fitzgerald, a senior lecturer in the school of history at University College Cork (UCC), has conducted extensive research on US military intervention and counter insurgency.<\/p>\n
Mr Fitzgerald told The Echo that he feels that the lack of planning from a American military perspective has been evidence since the war began on February 28.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think that there is a huge disconnect between tactics, which is the amount of bombs dropped and targets hit, and strategic results.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at American performance, like in one sense, it\u2019s not too surprising because bombing campaigns rarely work on their own.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBut it\u2019s kind of shocking to the extent to which that they\u2019ve not achieved any of their objectives, beyond degrading the Iranian ballistic missile programme.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
Mr Fitzgerald added: \u201cI think the ability of the US to hit Iranian targets was never in doubt, that they can drop bombs infinitely.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut their inability to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, in particular the fact that they\u2019ve sort of agreed that Iran control the Strait of Hormuz from now on is a massive setback for American interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Americans really didn\u2019t expect this to go on this long. I think that\u2019s very clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ceasefire<\/p>\n
As to how things will play out from here in the Middle East, Mr Fitzgerald added that US President Donald Trump would ideally love a ceasefire to hold.<\/p>\n
But he believes that the tensions between Iran and Israel could prove a sticking point.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI think the Israelis very obviously are far less interested in ceasefire than Trump, and that\u2019s why they continue to bomb Lebanon.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cSo I think it\u2019s very unlikely that Iran and Israel will stop hitting each other anytime soon.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m less clear what the Americans will do. I think if Trump can get some sort of symbolic concession from the Iranians that he can then take as a victory, I think he would be happy to walk away for now.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be a stable situation. I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll end soon in that sense. Even if the Americans walk away and then it\u2019s a couple of days and the ceasefire holds.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ll be dragged back in sooner than later because Iran isn\u2019t done and Israel is not done. And that\u2019s the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork expert on American military history feels that the war between the US\/Israel and Iran is turning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[781,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,15914,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-434825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-cork-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ucc","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116403610926188896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}