PETALING JAYA: With the war on Iran entering its third week, US president Donald Trump appears to be losing control of the outcome, and the narrative on the war, according to a Reuters analysis.
Trump, according to a White House official, was caught off guard by the resistance of fellow Nato members (whom he has since branded as “cowards”) and other allies to his call for them to deploy their navies to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.
For some analysts, the unwillingness of allies highlights not only their reluctance to be dragged into a war they were not consulted on, but a backlash against Trump’s belittling of traditional US alliances since his return to office for a second time, the report said.
Trump had in December labelled Europe as “decaying” and “weak” on immigration and had threatened tariffs on several allies in a standoff over his plans to take over Greenland from Denmark.
A few days ago, Trump hit out at British prime minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of being over-reliant on his advisers and unwilling to take decisions on his own regarding the Iran conflict.
According to Reuters, differences with Israel, the staunchest US ally, have begun surfacing, with Trump insisting that he knew nothing in advance about the Israeli attack on Iran’s South Pars gas field, a claim Israeli officials deny, insisting it had been coordinated with the US.
Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator for Republican and Democratic administrations, said Trump has “built himself a box called the Iran war, and he can’t figure out how to get out of it”, the report said.
“That’s his biggest source of frustration,” he was quoted as saying.
Analysts also said Trump had misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict, with the Islamic republic retaliating with its remaining missiles and a fleet of armed drones to offset its foes’ military might.
Iran has also struck neighbouring Gulf states and shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which most oil produced in the Persian Gulf is exported.
“They failed to think through the contingencies around ways in which a conflict with Iran could go sideways, where it might not go according to the plan as they laid out,” former US ambassador John Bass, who served in Afghanistan and Turkey, was quoted as saying.
Trump is also seemingly growing more frustrated with his inability to control the narrative and has in recent days accused the media of treason for reporting what he claims undermine the war effort.
Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Barack Obama administration, said Trump is finding it difficult to drive the news cycle because he cannot explain “why he’s taken this country to war and what comes next.”
“He seems to have lost his mojo on messaging,” Bruen, who now heads the Situation Room strategic consultancy in Washington, was quoted as saying.
