Iran has threatened the US it ‘will leave no act of aggression unanswered’ after the US launched strikes – an expert has revealed how this war has exposed the ‘real limits of US power’
Iran is playing an “old Mafia trick” on Donald Trump as the fragile ceasefire between Tehran and Washington is threatened, following US strikes on several Iranian sites, an expert has said.
The US military said it launched a series of “self-defence” strikes on several targets, including missile launch sites and boats placing mines, in southern Iran on Monday. American officials also claimed US forces acted with “restraint” in light of the ceasefire between the two nations, which has been in place since early April. Iran has hit back at the US and warned it would “leave no act of aggression unanswered” while claiming the attack was a “blatant violation” of the agreement.
A security and defence expert has suggested the new attacks, despite Trump claiming a deal to end the war was near, has been a “desperate” attempt for Trump to finish this war “at any price”.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Donald Trump’s fresh wave of airstrikes on Iran – and what it means now
The US President on Saturday claimed a peace deal with Iran “has been largely negotiated” following calls from Gulf allies, Israel and mediators in Pakistan. He posted: “An agreement has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization between the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the various other Countries.”
Despite this, Centcom spokesperson Capt Tim Hawkins, on Monday, revealed the US hit several targets to “protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces”.
Professor Anthony Glees, a security and defence expert at the University of Buckingham, blasted Trump and said Tehran was playing the “old Mafia trick” on the US President, as both sides near agreements then pull back.
The expert said: “The price has gone up, it’s the old Mafia trick. They [Iran] don’t do it then the price has doubled the next time and it goes on. Now what they’re talking about reopening something [the Strait of Hormuz] that was never closed in the first place.”
Professor Glees also slammed Trump’s actions and claimed the ongoing war was showing the world the “real limits of US power”. The expert said: “We are seeing his mind deteriorating and we are seeing America’s mind deteriorating with him. He desperately wants to end this stupid war at any price really.”
He added: “What we are seeing unfolding before our very eyes is the actual real limits of US power and everybody says ‘the United States of America the most powerful nation on Earth, the most powerful military this, that and the other’, well actually there are limits on American power and that is what we are seeing here.”
On these strikes coming less than 48 hours after a seemingly positive development in the peace process, the expert said: “The current contradictions in what Trump is saying about the war he and Netanyahu launched on Iran, in my view, are to be explained by the fact that America and Israel could not deliver the knockout blow that they claimed they were able to do.”
Professor Glees added: “Iran has not been defeated. The only possible two ways you would have of defeating a regime like the Iranian regime would be either to nuke it, and that’s totally off the cards even for Trump. Or, to have a boots on the ground campaign and that is also off the cards because it would lead to a huge loss of American life.”
Negotiations for an end to this war centre in part on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial waterway off southern Iran through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and natural gas passed before the war began with US-Israeli strikes in February. Tehran has effectively closed the strait since the start of the conflict, stranding hundreds of ships and shocking the global economy.
The strait has become a powerful lever for Tehran in talks, joining the long-running issue of Iran’s nuclear programme and highly enriched uranium. Tehran in turn wants the US to list its military blockade of Iranian ports.
On the peace memorandum, Glees said: “I think what the air strikes are meant to show is American forces are still in position literally to call the shots, however I don’t think anybody has taken in to this for one second.
“Trump is absolutely out of his mind, desperate to end this war… What they are talking about at the moment is not actually a proper peace deal, it’s a one page memorandum of understanding whose only purpose is to get the Strait of Hormuz open again. The one thing that was open right from the start.”