US President claims ‘complete victory’ in war that almost certainly won’t end as Israel looks set to continue attacks as it wants to complete its aims in dismantling weapons
Iranians burn US and Israeli flags(Image: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA/Shutterstock)
President Trump’s war on Iran has achieved none of the aims it set out to, including ending Tehran nuclear weapons ambitions, acceptable regime change and helping protesters. In fact it has, so far, left the enriched uranium buried under Iran’s nuclear facilities, imposed a new and more hardline regime on Iran and perhaps alienated Iranian people.
It has temporarily freed up the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war was not blocked, and it has hugely dismantled Iran’s military capability, although Israel will argue not by enough. Nor has the operation completely depleted Iran’s ballistic and normal missile capability, instead leaving it with something like half the weapons, including thousands of drones.
Israeli strike on Tyre, south Lebanon(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
READ MORE: Israeli intelligence ‘furious’ at Trump’s Iran ceasefire and intent on continuing war
OPINION
Voice of the Mirror
That’s about the sum of Donald Trump’s claimed ‘complete victory,’ a shabby and chaotic off-ramp that leaves far more questions and uncertainty than it answers. Now it is likely that Israel, frustrated over Trump’s attempt to weasel out of the war that he started, because it has not achieved what he hoped it would, will continue the conflict.
Sources have told the Mirror this morning that Israeli intelligence is determined to derail the peace process and continue with attacks on Iran to finish what it set out to destroy. That is Iran’s nuclear weapons ambition, as much of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as possible, Tehran’s ballistic weapons programme and create a less aggressive regime.
Yemeni Houthis show solidarity with Iran(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli strike and vehicle burn, Beirut, Lebanon(Image: AP)
The ten point plan includes Iran’s demands for control on the Strait of Hormuz, which it did not have before and no agreement on ballistic weapons, which both the US and Iran wanted. It does not, it is believed, include any agreement on a cessation of support by Iran of its proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, the Yemeni Houthis and pro-Iranian militia in Iraq.
And crucially we are told the plan even includes Iran’s demand that the US military remove itself from the Middle East – a dossier of unworkable demands that represents US capitulation. Iran’s compensation demands for damage imposed by the war will be a red line for the republican and Tehran may choose so tax ships over £1 million per vessel for safe passage.
US President Trump- desperate for off-ramp(Image: LENIN NOLLY/SIPA/Shutterstock)
This is a huge failure and how Trump can claim a victory would be incredible, if it weren’t for his track record in hubris. Now the US has two weeks to persuade Iran via Pakistan to completely re-write their demands and try to make Donald Trump’s ‘complete victory’ claim become even a little true.
This chaotic, desperate and lying claim of ‘complete victory’ is in fact a huge, desperate failure which has not achieved anything other than degrading Iran’s military potency.
And now other people will likely have to pick up the pieces, including America’s NATO partners who may have to help secure the Strait of Hormuz. The cost to the world of this mishandled war will be debated for decades.