{"id":838539,"date":"2026-09-06T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/838539\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T15:18:09","slug":"iran-war-likely-to-drag-on-for-another-six-months-ex-us-defense-secretary-warns-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/838539\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran war likely to drag on for another six months, ex-US defense secretary warns | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s war with Iran<\/a> is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former US defense secretary, has warned, as the US president struggles to find his way out of the controversial conflict.<\/p>\n

Panetta declared in an interview that the war with Iran \u2013 launched by Trump over six months ago<\/a> \u2013 risks becoming another \u201cforever war in the Middle East\u201d, with no clear end in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s no mystery that the United States and Iran are caught in a terrible stalemate, in which there really are very few options available to bring this war to an end,\u201d said Panetta, who also served as CIA director under Barack Obama<\/a>, suggesting the conflict is on course to become \u201canother failed war\u201d in the Middle East \u201clike Iraq and Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the likelihood is this war is going to continue for another six months without being resolved,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Panetta spoke to the Guardian days after the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, abruptly resigned<\/a>, departing amid the conflict, following reports of tensions <\/a>with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, over a series of firings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

US service members \u201care going to war at a time when there\u2019s tremendous turmoil at the Pentagon, in the command structure, which really creates a sense that there\u2019s nobody in charge\u201d, Panetta, who served as defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, added. \u201cAnd I just think that, whether it\u2019s Iran<\/a>, or whether it\u2019s our adversaries, they\u2019re now looking at the United States, and see weakness in terms of our ability to be able to really implement our military capability of defending our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cMy biggest concern right now is we live in a very dangerous world, with the primary threats coming from China, from Russia, from North Korea, and from terrorism, and yes, from Iran as well. But what I\u2019m concerned about is that we\u2019re sending a message of weakness to our primary adversaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd while they continue to meet and support each other in this axis that\u2019s been created, I think they look at the United States as being particularly weak right now, and that\u2019s a horrible message to send at a time when we\u2019re facing those kinds of threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Pentagon insisted it was \u201cfiring on all cylinders\u201d under Hegseth\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe premise that the Department is in disarray is completely baseless and an insult to every dedicated professional and warfighter in this building who comes to work every day to defend this nation,\u201d the chief Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said. \u201cThis is what reform looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House was also contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

In March, just three weeks after the US and Israel launched their military operation in Iran, Panetta told<\/a> the Guardian he believed Trump was stuck between a \u201crock and a hard place\u201d as he weighed whether to expand the war in a bid to eliminate Iran\u2019s leverage over the strait of Hormuz, or \u201cjust simply walk away and declare victory\u201d, despite the risk of perceived failure.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week Panetta said he \u201cabsolutely\u201d believed Trump remains in that position. \u201cHe\u2019s boxed himself in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Trump now has three options, according to Panetta. The first would be to walk away and \u201cadmit that it\u2019s a failed war\u201d, something Panetta finds it difficult to see Trump doing.<\/p>\n

The second would be to draw out the current \u201cstalemate, with periodic attacks going back and forth, tit for tat\u201d, and both sides attempting to \u201cavoid the startup of a more dangerous war\u201d while refusing to either negotiate or surrender.<\/p>\n

That approach, Panetta believes, would produce \u201cwhat all parties feared\u201d: another protracted war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The third option, he said, would be for the US to take control of the strait of Hormuz, and remove Iran\u2019s \u201cmost dangerous leverage point\u201d over the US, \u201cwhich is the ability \u2026 to close and disrupt\u201d the global trade chokepoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the president either steps up and does what\u2019s necessary to open up the strait of Hormuz, or, as I said, he just continues to play \u2026 this game of pretending that somehow he\u2019s winning a stalemate when the fact is he\u2019s not,\u201d Panetta said.<\/p>\n

Asked if he believed the war is \u201cwinnable\u201d for the US, Panetta replied: \u201cIt\u2019s only winnable if there is a dramatic change in the attitude of the United States that makes clear that the objective, the primary objective by the United States at this point in time, is to reopen the strait of Hormuz.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also argued that Trump has damaged his credibility by repeatedly erroneously claiming that a deal to end the war is imminent, and that the strait of Hormuz is open.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the real question is, is he going to make a decision to actually deliver?\u201d Panetta asked. \u201cFor a lot of reasons, right now, he\u2019s caught in the worst of every world because not only does he not have credibility, but any threats he makes are totally ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, JD Vance told reporters<\/a> that he would not describe the current military conflict with Iran as a \u201cwar\u201d. And asked whether he expected the conflict to be over by November\u2019s US midterm elections, the vice-president replied: \u201cI think the reality is I don\u2019t know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panetta told the Guardian he believes many Americans have \u201clost faith\u201d in Trump\u2019s \u201cability to handle this war\u201d, pointing to recent polling<\/a> that he said found<\/a> that a majority <\/a>of Americans believe that conflict with Iran was a mistake and are against it.<\/p>\n

He also said he hopes the Pentagon and Trump\u2019s broader administration learn from what happened with the extremely long deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in Thailand<\/a> this week after a record-breaking deployment supporting US operations against Iran that lasted more than 260 days<\/a> without a port visit, amid reports of deteriorating living conditions and mental health aboard.<\/p>\n

\u201cBottom line is, you do not deploy people endlessly into a war zone without making some kind of plans for rotation,\u201d Panetta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not just that the war is going badly \u2013 I think there\u2019s also kind of a lack of trust in our military as to whether or not they are properly supporting our men and women who are putting their lives on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump\u2019s war with Iran is likely to drag on for another six months, Leon Panetta, the former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-838539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}