• In the video above: Watch the Trump statement in the video here

US President Donald Trump has in his video statement after Start of the attacks on Iran, the population of the attacked country is held responsible. He said, in part: “When we’re done, take over your government. It will be yours. This will probably be your only chance in generations.”

Expert: This is Trump’s possible exit scenario

For the renowned security expert Peter Neumann, this represents a possible exit strategy for Trump. “I think if you listen carefully, he doesn’t promise anything Regime change“, says the expert from King’s College London in the podcast “Ronzheimer“. And further: “But he (Donald Trump, editor’s note) just says: With this attack we are creating the conditions for the Iranian people to take power. And then good luck with that. We are then not responsible for what happens as a result.”

According to Neumann, this gives Trump the opportunity to announce an end to the offensive after three to four days of bombing. Neumann says Trump could make the following argument: “‘OK, the story is now over as far as we’re concerned, we’ve destroyed the nuclear program again, destroyed the missiles and created a situation where the Iranian people can now take power. Good luck with that, we won.'” That, says Neumann, is a very plausible possibility for Trump: “I think that’s what he has in mind too and that’s one of the scenarios that would be very positive for him.”

Trump’s domestic political dilemma

It is clear that Trump is taking an extremely high risk with the renewed strike against Iran, which this time is much more far-reaching than the one from last summer. Most experts assume that the regime change that Trump is obviously aiming for cannot be achieved with air strikes alone. Similar to what the USA did in Iraq in 2003, it would probably require a massive deployment of ground troops in order to absorb the power vacuum that arises after a change of power and to give new figures at the top of Iran a chance to fill it.

But ground troops would automatically dramatically increase the risk of US soldiers being harmed. And it is precisely these losses that would be extremely damaging to Trump’s domestic policy, as he has always promised that this would not happen with him as president or that he would keep the USA out of wars with high losses.

“One or two successful hits are enough”

And it is precisely these promises from Trump and the corresponding expectations of his domestic political base that are his Achilles heel. Because Iran cannot defend itself militarily against the USA, they are hopefully inferior. The only chance for the Iranians to stop Trump is to exploit his aforementioned domestic political weakness.

And Peter Neumann also points this out in Paul Ronzheimer’s podcast when he talks about possible Iranian retaliation. He says: “The Iranians just have to get lucky – cynically speaking – once or twice and inflict significant damage on the Americans. Then Trump has a problem.”

Neumann explains this as follows: “Iran doesn’t have to deliver as much as the Americans. They know that they are totally inferior to the Americans militarily. But they understand that Trump is very vulnerable domestically. That means: One or two successful strikes on US military bases that kill 10 or 20 soldiers are already enough to get Trump into an incredible mess domestically and to drag him into a conflict that he never planned.”