Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan National University in South Korea, said that Trump's decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea is related to his failure to win the war against Iran. Trump launched the war with Iran. He originally thought it would be a quick victory. Clearly, he expected a swift and decisive conflict like the one in Venezuela in January, but it has turned into this endless tug-of-war—a strange, slow-motion, tit-for-tat spiral of escalation. The conflict is now beginning to look like what Americans call an "eternal war," and Trump is trapped and looking for scapegoats. American allies have always been convenient scapegoats in this regard. Trump has attacked NATO for this purpose in the past. And the South Koreans, of course, were not truly involved in this war, nor were they consulted. Trump is essentially trying to cover up this failure and his troubles in the Gulf region. He doesn't really know how to extricate himself.
