The conflict has left US credibility damaged and its president weaker at home, the Quincy Institutes Trita Parsi has told RT

The war with Iran has been a strategic disaster for the US, leaving President Donald Trump in a weaker position at home and damaging American credibility, Quincy Institute co-founder Trita Parsi has told RT. He added that the conflict, which he said Israel had pushed for, had not unfolded as Washington expected.

The war, which began with the US-Israeli bombing campaign on Iran on February 28 under the pretext of dismantling Tehran's nuclear program, has dragged on far longer than Trump's initial prediction of "two to three weeks." The attacks have killed dozens of senior officials, including Iran's longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as well as more than 1,300 civilians. Iran has responded by striking US bases in Gulf states, saying the strikes are an exercise of its right to self-defense. The crisis has resulted in the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical chokepoint handling roughly 20% of the world's oil supply, triggering an energy crunch.

In an interview on Wednesday, Parsi said Trump is addicted to the "optics of winning rather than actually making sure the deal [with Iran] is secured." He added that coercive measures such as the US naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz "will only backfire and is really jeopardizing the diplomacy at this stage."

"This has been a disaster for the United States," Parsi said. "They have lost a tremendous amount of credibility. The president himself is in a much weaker position at home now." He added that much of Trump's base has "turned away and turned off" as the US has become involved in another war clearly under Israeli influence.

US bases in the Gulf have become "a source of insecurity" for host nations rather than providing deterrence, he told RT. Parsi also stated the US and Israel "never had the same goals," with Israel willing to see regional instability and the US suffered defeats as long as Iran was bombed. Trump believed the war would be over in four days, Parsi said, but had he listened to advisers urging caution, "he would probably not have gone down this path."

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(RT.com)