Middle East Eye's editor-in-chief David Hearst argues in his latest column that both Israel and the US are "stuck in a doom loop of their own making" in the war that they have waged on Iran.

"It looks like Groundhog Day for Trump. Last week, he was busy dusting off the files for the potential use of US troops in ground operations in Iran," Hearst says in regard to the on-again-off-again US ceasefire negotiations with Iran.

"But in the four months since he and Netanyahu started this war, the ground at home has been shifting underneath his feet. American public opinion has been turning against this war - and against Israel, too.

"Does it matter? Yes, it does. It was in this arena, not the front lines of Southeast Asia, that former US President Lyndon B Johnson lost the Vietnam War," he adds.

"It took the US seven years from the realisation that it could not win in Vietnam to pulling out. Let’s hope it does not take Trump this long to realise he cannot win in Iran, nor in the broader Middle East," Hearst concludes.

US President Donald Trump is pictured in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on 21 July 2026 (Saul Loeb/AFP)