Nigel Farage has predicted there will be “a very, very sharp increase in military action in Iran” in the wake of Donald Trump’s midterms humiliation.
The Reform UK leader, once of the US president’s strongest supporters, said the conflict will be “a very hard one to win”.
Trump is still licking his wounds after the Republicans lost control of both the House of Representatives and the US Senate to the Democrats last Tuesday.
On the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Farage said Trump had let down American voters.
He said: “The problem is this: Trump was all about ‘you vote for me, this is what I will do’. Dead simple. And no more foreign wars was at the heart of everything he’d said since 2015.
“Now look, the idea of launching strikes to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon, I was supportive of. But we’re now eight-and-a-half months into a prolonged war that’s led to increased prices – gas, diesel, Americans putting in their cars.
“And that’s at the heart of why he’s done badly. He’s seen by many voters to have broken that promise.”
Asked what he thinks Trump will do next, Farage said: “I would expect a very, very sharp increase in military action in Iran, I really would.
“I haven’t spoken to him. I can see it, I can feel it. I’m looking at the staff changes [in the White House] that have taken place in the last 48 hours.
“Clearly the Iranian regime is weakened economically, and the people really paying the price are the Iranian people.”
He added: “All the mistakes Britain and America have made in the last 25 years, often together, have been because there’s been no actual exit plan. If they’ve got a clear plan it’s fine.
“But this isn’t like Gadaffi, this isn’t like Saddam, where you get rid of a dictatorial head and the whole thing collapses. This is a theocracy, it’s a very different battle and I would suspect a very hard one to win.”
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