Middle East crisis Iran war

Analysis: The war in Iran is not going as Trump had planned

The war in Iran is not going as Donald Trump had planned, and the president risks losing support at home. This is what Sky News' Mark Stone says in an analysis.

- He clearly does not think the war is going as he had expected. I think they had expected a second round of Venezuela - a quick intervention that would be over quickly, he says.

Although many Americans still trust the president's decisions, a large part of the population no longer does, according to Stone.

The Financial Times' Gideon Rachman is also on the Venezuela track. He writes in an analysis that the decision to go to war was largely influenced by the previous attack on Venezuela, but that the same strategy has not worked in Iran.

Trump has said that he wants to be involved in the election of a new leader in Iran, in the same way as in Venezuela. That plan has been crushed after Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba Khamenei was appointed as the new supreme leader after his father's death.

"The failure to install a US-friendly leader makes it impossible to follow the Venezuela strategy in Iran," writes Rachman.

Trump: "Nowhere near a decision on ground troops"

The United States is "nowhere near" making a decision to deploy ground troops in Iran. This is what President Donald Trump told the New York Post.

- We have not made a decision on that. We are not even close to it, he says.

According to information to several media outlets, Trump has privately raised the issue of deploying ground troops in Iran. According to NBC News, it would in that case be a small force to be used for "specific strategic purposes".

Trump also tells the New York Post that he is very dissatisfied with the decision to appoint Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran's new supreme leader. But when asked what the US plans for the new leader are, he replies:

– I won't tell you. I won't tell you, but I'm not happy with him.

United Arab Emirates: Will not participate in attacks on Iran

The United Arab Emirates has been one of Iran's neighbors that has felt the effects of Iran's retaliatory attacks the hardest. Despite that, the country will not participate in any direct attacks on Iran, the country's UN ambassador Jamal Al Musharakh said, according to AFP.

– We have been very clear in the past and in light of the current events that we are witnessing in the region that the United Arab Emirates will not participate in any attacks on Iran from our territory and that we will not be involved in such a conflict, he told reporters in Geneva.