Trump admin plants story aimed at blaming military leaders for Iran mess: analysis

A fresh excuse for the Iran war failures may be being plotted by Donald Trump's administration, according to a political analyst — and it would throw the military under the bus.

Emily Horne, a former National Security Council and State Department staffer, believes the president's team will claim military shortcomings have impacted the war with Iran in the coming days. Speaking to Greg Sargent of The New Republic, Horne claimed a story had been planted in the press to test the waters of blaming military intelligence as a reason for wartime shortcomings.

A video described by an unnamed official as "stuff blowing up" in Iran has been leaked to NBC, and Horne believes this was done intentionally to leave a trail of evidence to blame the military.

Horne said, "I think this story is a White House plant. You’ve got multiple sources, both current and former, who are all singing from the same sheet of music — which says to me, again, this is coordinated. This is a plan.

"But to be clear, there’s a deeper message that I think they want planted in people’s minds, which is that this White House is now creating excuses for why the war is not going well and why the American people do not approve of this war.

"And one of the excuses that they are creating is, well, the president of the United States is not being fed good information by his military.

"That is what they are trying to plant with this story, if—as I suspect—this is a planted story. They’re trying to create a paper trail and a narrative that says this is going badly not because Donald Trump made terrible decisions, but because his military leadership is not being honest with him about what is happening."

Trump faced further failure in the region, with his administration's 15-point plan to end the war being rejected by Iranian officials.