Donald Trump‘s escalation threats and lack of strategy for his war in Iran “utterly terrify” US allies in the Middle East who fear he has no viable exit plan, a leading correspondent based in the Gulf has revealed.
Matthew Chance, chief global affairs correspondent at CNN, told The i Paper that insiders in Gulf countries saw few good options left for Trump to end his war.
Insiders fear that further escalation will prompt Iranian retaliation against their vital infrastructure that could make Gulf nations unlivable. At the same time, they know that if Trump suddenly ends his war, they could be abandoned to a vengeful and more belligerent Iran.
Last night Trump claimed that his “core strategic objectives” in the war were near completion even as he threatened to bomb Iran “back to the stone age” and said the conflict could last another two to three weeks.
While urging Iran to agree to a ceasefire, Trump has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East, prompting increasing fears that he is preparing for a ground operation.
Escalation prospect ‘terrifies’ the Gulf
Chance, who is currently based in Qatar, having reported on major conflicts from around the world for more than 20 years, said he had spoken to Qatari government officials as well as people on the street.
A Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Chance that “the government is absolutely against a deployment of US troops into Iran”.
Chance said that the prospect of escalation “utterly terrifies” Qatar, a view “shared by lots of Gulf states”.
None of Donald Trump’s options are good, says Chance (Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)Further escalation would be economically existential for a country like Qatar. “If it can’t resume oil and gas exports soon then it’s going to be in a dire economic position. It’s losing billions of dollars a day,” Chance said.
Qatar “just want to get back to business as normal,” he added, even if it means they have to deal with a volatile Iran that has control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes.
However, he pointed out that there were differing views on the war within the Gulf.
“The Gulf states do not necessarily speak with a single voice, particularly on the issue of Iran. There are states like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates [UAE], who are much more hardline about what the response to Iran should be than countries like Qatar and Oman, for example, who are much more conciliatory,” he said.
“A view that some Gulf states have expressed to Washington is that once you’ve started doing this to Iran, you better not leave them in a position where they can do this again,” Chance said.
“However, Trump is a very unpredictable character. We all know, having seen how he operates in two terms as President of the United States, that he could turn around tomorrow, end this war and walk away.
“And I think we’re all coming to the realisation that if this war ends tomorrow, that would leave a certain degree of chaos.
Trump with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim ibn Hamad Al Thani, left, and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani. Qatar’s previously strong alliance with the US has been shaken by the conflict, according to Chance (Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)“We will be left with a belligerent Iran which probably still has a nuclear programme of some kind, which still has ballistic missiles of some kind and now controls the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important waterways.
“That’s a much worse strategic position than before the war began and could potentially be a strategic defeat for the Trump administration.”
But Chance asserted that “in some ways, it’s the best-case scenario, because the alternative is that this war escalates”.
He questioned what US boots on the ground would achieve, and said that if they were used to capture targets like Kharg Island – a sea port responsible for exporting up to 90 per cent of Iran’s oil products – it would be putting US troops at “enormous” risk when “there are other ways of stopping Iran selling oil”.
While the government in Doha, Qatar’s capital, is scrambling to find a diplomatic solution, the Qatari people are angry about the war, Chance emphasised.
Chance said the people he had spoken to “are very critical of the fact that this war has begun in the first place. They call it [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war and say that the US President was convinced by the Israeli Prime Minister to embark on this military adventure. Because it benefited him but not anyone else.”
Why Gulf countries will look elsewhere for their security
Trump’s decision to go to war against the wishes of the Gulf was prompting a reconsideration of the extent of nations’ relations with the United States, on whom they depended for their security.
Chance pointed out that despite Qatar hosting large US military bases, this had not protected them from attacks by Iran but made them targets instead.
He added that relations had been strained “a little bit by the fact that, despite their warnings to Washington about the potential impact on the region of a war in Iran, President Trump went ahead anyway and basically ignored them”.
Since then, they had been trying to persuade Trump to stay away from attacking energy infrastructure and desalination plants in Iran in case the Islamic Republic then turned around and did the same to Qatar, Chance said.
Iran has effectively closed the vital Strait of Hormuz by attacking vessels travelling through it (Photo: AFP/Royal Thai Navy/Getty Images)He asserted that this would cause a “humanitarian crisis” in Qatar and make it unlivable, something which was not fully appreciated by Washington.
But this crisis was not just a problem for Qatar. “This war poses an existential threat to the Gulf Arab states, and that’s something that has not been fully appreciated by Washington before they launched this conflict,” Chance said.
“You’ve got to imagine that these Gulf states are scrutinising these close military relations with the US, and asking themselves whether that’s the right structure for the future. No one’s going to walk away from an alliance with America, but they might diversify their agreements as insurance.”
Trump has no good options left
Chance said Trump no longer had any good options left to win the war. Trump could “either escalate, which is where we look like we’re going right now, with the deployment of so many thousands of American troops to the region, or he could appease, walk away, declare victory, but basically leave Iran in a situation where it is strategically more powerful than it was before the war.”
“It’s a horrible choice, because there’s no good result that comes from either of those routes,” he added.
The war has killed 15 US soldiers so far (Photo: Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)This current predicament for Trump was in part because “he went into this war without a clear idea of what he wanted to achieve. Unless you’ve got a clear political goal for a military campaign, you can’t judge how successful it is.”
He pointed out how Trump’s justification for the war “seems to change all the time” from toppling the regime, to the degradation of Iran’s weapons and to obliterating Iran’s nuclear programme, which he claimed the US had achieved last June.
“That means you can’t really put forces in the right place to achieve that result, because you don’t even know what it is you’re trying to achieve, so I think that’s the fundamental problem.”
Whilst the war drags on, the conflict has plunged global markets into turmoil as Iran’s strategic position allows them control over the crucial trade route the Strait of Hormuz.
Chance said: “We’re only at the start of this crisis, really, in terms of the energy supply, and there’s already a massive fallout taking place in Asia because it is most dependent on energy from the Gulf.”
“We are heading headlong towards a global recession, unless this crisis can be addressed as quickly as possible.”
Hence then, the article about i ve spoken to gulf insiders trump s lack of a plan terrifies them was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I’ve spoken to Gulf insiders. Trump’s lack of a plan terrifies them )
Also on site :