{"id":32008,"date":"2026-03-23T10:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/32008\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:29:15","slug":"uk-security-expert-labels-trumps-iran-approach-floundering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/32008\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Security Expert Labels Trumps Iran Approach Floundering"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UK military expert has said Donald Trump<\/a> is \u201cfloundering around\u201d in his attempts to end the war in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former national security adviser Lord Peter Ricketts<\/a> said the US president \u201cis making it up as he goes along\u201d more than three weeks after the conflict began.<\/p>\n

His comments, on Radio 4\u2032s Today programme, came as the countdown continues on Trump\u2019s ultimatum for Iran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz<\/a> or risk their power plants being \u201cobliterated\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The president issued the warning as the vital waterway \u2013 which carried around one-fifth of the world\u2019s oil supply \u2013 remains effectively closed to traffic because of the risk of Iranian attacks.<\/p>\n

However, Lord Ricketts said: \u201cIran is not going to capitulate to Donald Trump\u2019s threat and ultimatum and so he is going to have a massive decision to take\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes he walk away from the ultimatum \u2013 he\u2019s done that many times in the Ukraine <\/a>and Gaza <\/a>context \u2013 or does he double down and smash up the power stations, rather like the Russians have behaved in Ukraine for the last three or four years?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn which case, Iran certainly will retaliate against American and Gulf oil and gas assets. They can do that and they will do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Trump has to decide what to do further. Does he at that point double down again, does he start talking about introducing troops?\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis is the problem of someone who behaves like Trump. Nobody dares speak truth to power and therefore he is making it up as he goes along.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s floundering around with massive stakes, because every time he makes one of these threats, the Iranians are confirmed in their view that holding the Strait of Hormuz tightly in their grip as they\u2019re doing is a very powerful weapon and they\u2019re not going to unlearn that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Keir Starmer discussed the importance to the global economy of the Strain or Hormuz being reopened in a telephone call on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

A Downing Street spokesman said: \u201cThe leaders discussed the current situation in the Middle East, and in particular, the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to resume global shipping.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey agreed that reopening the Strait of Hormuz was essential to ensure stability in the global energy market.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UK military expert has said Donald Trump is \u201cfloundering around\u201d in his attempts to end the war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[38,34,14774],"class_list":{"0":"post-32008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-peter-ricketts"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116278025501859651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}