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Donald Trump’s war with Iran is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former US defense secretary, has warned, as the US president struggles to find his way out of the controversial conflict.
Panetta declared in an interview that the war with Iran – launched by Trump over six months ago – risks becoming another “forever war in the Middle East”, with no clear end in sight.
“It’s no mystery that the United States and Iran are caught in a terrible stalemate, in which there really are very few options available to bring this war to an end,” said Panetta, who also served as CIA director under Barack Obama, suggesting the conflict is on course to become “another failed war” in the Middle East “like Iraq and Afghanistan”.
“I think the likelihood is this war is going to continue for another six months without being resolved,” he added.
Panetta spoke to the Guardian days after the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, abruptly resigned, departing amid the conflict, following reports of tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, over a series of firings.
US service members “are going to war at a time when there’s tremendous turmoil at the Pentagon, in the command structure, which really creates a sense that there’s nobody in charge”, Panetta, who served as defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, added. “And I just think that, whether it’s Iran, or whether it’s our adversaries, they’re now looking at the United States, and see weakness in terms of our ability to be able to really implement our military capability of defending our country.”
He said: “My biggest concern right now is we live in a very dangerous world, with the primary threats coming from China, from Russia, from North Korea, and from terrorism, and yes, from Iran as well. But what I’m concerned about is that we’re sending a message of weakness to our primary adversaries.
“And while they continue to meet and support each other in this axis that’s been created, I think they look at the United States as being particularly weak right now, and that’s a horrible message to send at a time when we’re facing those kinds of threats.”
In a statement, the Pentagon insisted it was “firing on all cylinders” under Hegseth’s leadership.
“The premise that the Department is in disarray is completely baseless and an insult to every dedicated professional and warfighter in this building who comes to work every day to defend this nation,” the chief Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said. “This is what reform looks like.”
The White House was also contacted for comment.
In March, just three weeks after the US and Israel launched their military operation in Iran, Panetta told the Guardian he believed Trump was stuck between a “rock and a hard place” as he weighed whether to expand the war in a bid to eliminate Iran’s leverage over the strait of Hormuz, or “just simply walk away and declare victory”, despite the risk of perceived failure.
Earlier this week Panetta said he “absolutely” believed Trump remains in that position. “He’s boxed himself in,” he said.
Trump now has three options, according to Panetta. The first would be to walk away and “admit that it’s a failed war”, something Panetta finds it difficult to see Trump doing.
The second would be to draw out the current “stalemate, with periodic attacks going back and forth, tit for tat”, and both sides attempting to “avoid the startup of a more dangerous war” while refusing to either negotiate or surrender.
That approach, Panetta believes, would produce “what all parties feared”: another protracted war in the Middle East.
The third option, he said, would be for the US to take control of the strait of Hormuz, and remove Iran’s “most dangerous leverage point” over the US, “which is the ability to to close and disrupt” the global trade chokepoint.
“So the president either steps up and does what’s necessary to open up the strait of Hormuz, or, as I said, he just continues to play this this game of pretending that somehow he’s winning a stalemate when the fact is he’s not,” Panetta said.
Asked if he believed the war is “winnable” for the US, Panetta replied: “It’s only winnable if there is a dramatic change in the attitude of the United States that makes clear that the objective, the primary objective by the United States at this point in time, is to reopen the strait of Hormuz.”
He also argued that Trump has damaged his credibility by repeatedly erroneously claiming that a deal to end the war is imminent, and that the strait of Hormuz is open.
“So the real question is, is he going to make a decision to actually deliver?” Panetta asked. “For a lot of reasons, right now, he’s caught in the worst of every world because not only does he not have credibility, but any threats he makes are totally ignored.”
Earlier this week, JD Vance told reporters that he would not describe the current military conflict with Iran a “war”. And asked whether he expected the conflict to be over by November’s US midterm elections, the vice-president replied: “I think the reality is I don’t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.”
Panetta told the Guardian he believes many Americans have “lost faith” in Trump’s “ability to handle this war”, pointing to recent polling that he said found that a majority of Americans believe that conflict with Iran was a mistake and are against it.
He also said he hopes the Pentagon and Trump’s broader administration learn from what happened with the extremely long deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in Thailand this week after a record-breaking deployment supporting US operations against Iran that lasted more than 260 days without a port visit, amid reports of deteriorating living conditions and mental health aboard.
“Bottom line is, you do not deploy people endlessly into a war zone without making some kind of plans for rotation,” Panetta said.
“So it’s not just that the war is going badly – I think there’s also kind of a lack of trust in our military as to whether or not they are properly supporting our men and women who are putting their lives on the line.”
