Donald Trump is stuck between “a rock and a hard place”
after three weeks of war in Iran
and “sending a message of weakness” to the world
Leon Panetta, a former US defence secretary and Central Intelligence Agency director, has told the Guardian.
Panetta, who served in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations,
recalled that national security officials were always keenly aware of Iran’s ability to create an energy crisis by blocking the strait of Hormuz.
That very scenario is now unfolding, leaving Trump with no exit strategy beyond wishful thinking.
“He tends to be naive about how things can happen,”
Panetta, 87, who supervised the operation to find and kill Osama bin Laden, said by phone.
“If he says it and keeps saying it there’s always a hope that what he says will come true.
But that’s what kids do.
It’s not what presidents do.”
Panetta said: “When [Trump] or those around him started publishing pictures of football games,
raising money by using pictures of our dead coming home at Dover [air force base], and doing the kind of tasteless things that he can do,
he’s basically sending a message of weakness, not a message of strength to the world.
“That, unfortunately, is what the world sees right now,
and I can see why he’s having problems trying to get allies to be able to respond when they’re not sure he knows what he’s doing"
“Any other president of the United States would have recognised the mistake and apologise for what happened,”
Panetta remarked.
“He doesn’t do that.
It sends an image of America that kind of fits the ugly American image that a lot of people once had of this country.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/22/trump-iran-leon-panetta?CMP=Share%5FiOSApp%5FOther
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