Watch | 'Delusional, Unhinged, Sociopath' Trump Underestimated Iran
Kanwal Sibal, a former Foreign Secretary and former Ambassador to Russia and France and now Chancellor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Manoj Joshi, a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a highly regarded Strategic Affairs Analyst, discuss whether Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have underestimated Iran’s resilience and its capacity to retaliate and fight on. In particular, they analyze President Trump and his behaviour, the things he has said as well as the things he claims have taken him by surprise. For instance, Trump has claimed he didn’t realize Iran would retaliate by hitting American bases in the Gulf nor did he realize Iran would seek to block the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran had made it clear that if attacked it would retaliate on American bases in the Gulf and had been saying so for weeks before the war began. This is also what the Gulf countries feared. Trump’s own former Advisor, Nate Swanson, had written in February that if attacked Iran would block the Strait of Hormuz. So how come Trump didn’t know this? What does it tell us about him? His planning? The advice he gets? And his understanding of the Middle East?
This article went live on March nineteenth, two thousand twenty six, at fifty-three minutes past eleven in the morning.The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
