War on Iran not going as US planned – Indian journalist

Donald Trump is buying time for Washington in the conflict with Tehran, Suhasini Haider has told RT India

The war against Iran unleashed by the US is not going according to Washington’s plan, a noted Indian journalist has said.

Misreading the mindset of Iranians has been the US' biggest miscalculation, Suhasini Haider, the diplomatic editor of The Hindu, told RT India.

“The broader message [of the pause on attacks], I would say, from what Trump is saying is that the first three weeks of the war have not gone as planned,” she said in a conversation with RT’s Runjhun Sharma. 

“After giving a deadline of 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz or face a bombardment of your energy facilities, he’s buying time for whatever the US’ eventual purpose is,” she said. “If in three weeks of bombardment you have been able to decimate some part of the Iranian leadership, but not change the kind of Iranian behavior… then are you going to succeed in a few more weeks of that.” 

Iran has chosen to do what perhaps is the most rational thing, which is to threaten Gulf countries and particularly American bases there, according to Haider. 

“I think where they [the US] have misunderstood or miscalculated is the culture [of Iran],” the journalist said. 

Haider believes the US expected an uprising as soon as the Iranian leadership was removed. Washington also thought Iran would “would never go through” with the threat it made last year to blockade the Strait of Hormuz “because of the huge cost it would have, not just on other countries and friends of Iran, but on Iran itself,” according to Haider.

The US, which had always underpinned the global rules-based order, is now its biggest violator, she noted. 

Haider said that India has always stood for strong bilateral ties with all nations in the Middle East but now it must secure its food, fuel, and fertilizer security.