Former U.S. Army Major Harrison Mann anticipates that President Donald Trump's "last-ditch effort" in Iran will fail.
Speaking to CNN, Mann detailed his expectations for Trump's upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, predicting the president will ultimately walk away empty handed.
"I'm expecting Trump to try another last-ditch effort to try and extricate himself from the mess he made in the Middle East," Mann said. "In the past weeks. He's kind of made appeals to China already to try and help open the Strait of Hormuz, to try and help pressure Iran. I think that's the remaining silver bullet he hasn't really tried yet."
Trump left Tuesday for China, where he will discuss the Iran war, tariffs and other matters. One Democratic strategist said on Tuesday morning he expects Trump to figure out some kind of deal he can negotiate with Xi Jinping so he can have a "win" of some sort.
Mann thinks that Trump will ultimately be "disappointed with the response" from the Chinese leader.
"There's a misconception that Trump has — and I think a lot of folks in DC do that — you know, China is a really close ally of Iran. And China can apply this leverage that will make Iran open the Strait," Mann continued. "It's true that they have a trade relationship that, from the Iranian perspective, China is a really important trade partner and oil importer. But China has tried to be a friend to everyone in the region."
Mann added that China also imports from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E. They also sell weapons to the two countries.
"A couple of years ago, China brokered a resumption of diplomatic relations between Saudi and Iran. And so I think it's really unlikely that President Xi would decide to really weigh in heavily on Trump's side of this conflict or on any side at all," he explained.
CNN host Briana Keilar said that the only person who is really in control of ending the war is Trump himself.
"It's really up to him if he wants to pull the plug, though. I mean, that's in his power here," she said.
As Trump might say, he has no cards, Mann explained.
"When it comes to finding some resolution to the war with Iran, Trump is operating from a position of incredible weakness. And I, unfortunately,as an American who'sbearing the costs of this war,he continues to be out of ideas.He continues to threaten to dothe same thing over and over,whether it's bomb or some kindof war crimes. We already triedthat. It didn't work. And he'sgoing to try a kind of last-ditch diplomatic route as well," said Mann.
He said that his fear is that Trump will come out of the meeting with Xi having failed and see his only option "to start bombing again."
The economic situation, he predicted, will continue to get worse, and it will specifically hurt his own MAGA voters.