Former top diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger has sharply criticized the U.S. administration for lacking a concrete plan in the Iran conflict. “I am negatively surprised that the American government still cannot communicate a fairly reliable plan outlining the goal of the intervention in Iran” he told the newspaper Stern.
Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference, warned that the worst outcome is that nations stumble into operations without a clear strategy that even their allies are aware of. He noted that on the first day of the war, Trump coined the term “Regime Change”. “Washington has since changed its justification for the use of force, as if changing shirts. ‘Regime Change’ is no longer a central storyline, or only spoken of on the margins” he added.
He sees substantial risks for Europe and recalls the period before the Iraq war when he served as the German ambassador in Washington. There he had to witness the Bush administration drifting away from the agreed-upon focus on Afghanistan and increasingly concentrating on Iraq. According to Ischinger, Germany, as a European leadership nation, must make it clear to the U.S. that the priority should remain on Ukraine- and that a prolonged military engagement with Iran should not exacerbate Ukraine’s ammunition shortages.
