US President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iran even as the unpopular and costly war drags on with no end in sight and no sign that the US is close to achieving any of the lofty goals he set for the conflict.
Trump posted an image of himself along with Iran’s slain former supreme leader Ali Khamenei against a stylised landscape background of punishing US air and missile attacks.
“Mission Accomplished 2026”, a caption reads.
The slogan evokes former president George W. Bush’s infamous premature declaration of “mission accomplished” in Iraq, a conflict that continued for years afterwards. Trump even includes a photo of Bush in the image with the caption “Mission not accomplished 2001-21”.
Democrats trashed Trump for what they called a tone-deaf “mission accomplished” claim with Senator Chuck Schumer calling the president “delusional” for saying he has won anything in the Iran fight.
“Trump started a war with no plan, no mission, and no idea of the consequences, like sky-high gas prices,” Schumer told the Daily News. “He’s made the world more dangerous, driven up our costs, and he’s put American lives at risk every step of the way.”
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump’s handling of Iran is supported by just 31 per cent of American voters, and his failure to end the conflict on terms that show a clear victory could cost Republicans at the ballot box in the November midterm elections and beyond.
A big chunk of his own base opposes the war, which some see as a clear violation of his campaign pledge to end overseas entanglements.
Trump’s claim of victory comes without any apparent movement on key war aims he set out, like permanently ending Iran’s nuclear programme, preventing Tehran from attacking neighbours and funding terror proxy groups. Trump vowed to engineer regime change but Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, took power after his father’s killing and the regime appears little changed and more firmly entrenched in power than ever.
Most Republican strategists believe Trump should focus on kitchen table issues like tax cuts and the fairly resilient US economy rather than trying to put a positive spin on the Iran war, which has caused the price of fuel to skyrocket.
Trump himself is badly underwater in polls, with less than 40 per cent of the American voters approving of his performance in the White House, raising the question if he will drag down congressional Republicans to defeat especially if he focuses on unpopular issues like Iran.
Non-partisan analysts predict Democrats will retake control of the House of Representatives and have a decent chance of flipping the Senate, though they would need to win daunting races in several red states to do so.
Source: www.scmp.com
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