Donald Trump was today warned that launching an amphibious operation to secure the Strait of Hormuz would be a ‘nightmare’.
General Sir Richard Shirreff, former deputy commander of NATO forces in Europe, raised fears that US troops could face drone attacks from ‘hundreds of miles inland’ if they landed on Iranian islands in the Strait.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that while the Iranians held the Strait, Trump ‘is losing’ against a battered but ‘angry, vengeful’ Tehran regime which still held away over the waterway.
The dire warnings come against the backdrop of a build-up of American land forces in the Gulf with new reports that some 10,000 US troops would now be deployed on top of Marine expeditionary forces.
But Sir Richard raised fears over the perils of an operation to seize control of the Strait of Hormuz even if it was attempt to run a one-off convoy through.
Asked to describe what US military action to take the Strait would amount to, the retired British Army general said: ‘it looks like another nightmare.
‘Frankly, it is about as difficult an operation as could conceive – an amphibious operation.
‘Think Gallipoli for example in this context which did not go right.
‘You have to land troops on a hostile shore.
‘You’ve got to be able to secure that hostile shore, and at the same time, the enemy has a vote here.’
He warned that despite being ‘written down massively militarily’ by US attacks, ‘they’ve still got missiles, they’ve still got huge numbers of drones.
‘And don’t forget, funny old thing, the Russians have been supplying them with drones and with targeting information, so the Iranians still have capability.
‘Do not underestimate them.’
In relation to US troops seizing islands in the Strait, he warned: ‘There will be drones coming from hundreds of miles inland.
‘How far inland do you go?’
But he also warned that any US operation to go further and march on Tehran itself would be ‘steroids to the power of 10’ compared to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He described such an option as ‘militarily and politically inconceivable but I’ll say it anyway.
‘Which is that if Trump says I’m going to march on Tehran, I’m going to topple the regime, and I’m going to occupy Iran – it’s a similar operation to what happened in 2003 except on steroids to the power of 10.
‘It would require hundreds of thousands of troops for Trump to do that.’
The disastrous Gallipoli campaign of 1915-16 was a failed Anglo-French operation in the First World War against the Ottoman Empire in Turkey, which led to over 44,000 Allied troops being killed.
