The US told Turkey through official channels that the war on Iran would only take four days, Asli Aydintasbas, a Washington DC-based Turkey expert, said during an interview on March 15.

In an echo of the widely held contention that Vladimir Putin believed his war on Ukraine would be successfully wrapped up within a few days, the Trump administration apparently had the idea that if Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was quickly overthrown or killed, the Iranian regime would collapse.

“Turkey and some of its allies were told, through official channels, that this operation would take days and be completed in four days,” Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank with sources in Washington and Ankara, said in the interview with the Serbestiyet news site.

She added: “You cannot tell a Nato ally [Turkey] that you have made a four-day plan and then extend the operation to 14 days. This, in a sense, was also a betrayal of the countries in the region.”

The US and Israel launched the war, now in its third week, against Iran on February 28 with air strikes. The attack came at a time when talks with Tehran, involving Oman as a mediator, were still live.

Aydintasbas also observed how the US and Israeli objectives on Iran were different – Israel ideally preferred regime change in Iran, though would settle for a fragmented and “Syrianised” country, while Trump, on the other hand, wanted a quick victory and a return to nuclear negotiations after obtaining major concessions from Iran. He was, said Aydintasbas, at least anticipating a Venezuela-type option in which remaining regime officials moved to cooperate with Washington.

The Trump administration, however, did not do its homework, if Aydintasbas’ account of the chain of events is correct, not even consulting any Iran experts in Washington.

“Each Iran expert I talked to said the regime wouldn’t change via a military operation, it would not change through air strikes,” said Aydintasbas, adding: “So, driven a bit by Israel’s encouragement and by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s urging, Trump wanted to carry out a hit-and-run move, and now he is stuck in an open-ended war.”

She concluded: “I think everyone watching Trump from a distance is aware of this. It is very much a ‘we’ll build the plane while flying it’ style approach: let’s just begin and see what happens. We will kill Khamenei quickly, they will kneel, then they will come to a nuclear deal, and I will announce a great success before the midterms [elections in the US].

“But once Trump saw regime change was not possible and that Iran was showing resistance even after Khamenei, he appears to have asked: ‘So what can we do?’”

For several weeks ahead of the war, Ankara stepped up efforts to arrange top-level talks between the US, Iran and Turkey on avoiding a conflict, but once the war was under way, and not coming to the fast conclusion desired by Trump, the Turks were to get another rude awakening as to how far American thinking on how to expertly tackle the reality of the 47-year-old Islamic Republic of Iran was from theirs.

According to Aydintasbas, frustrated by how slowly things were moving, Trump’s officials came up with the option of bringing the Kurds – namely anti-Tehran militias found across western Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey – into the equation.

“Somehow this plan went around for two to three days. But it produced a major backlash, in the media and from Turkey, behind the scenes,” said Aydintasbas.

“I think Turkey relayed serious objections through US envoy Thomas Barrack and its own channels. And from what I picked up on, countries like Saudi Arabia said, ‘Wait a minute, what are you doing? A civil war in Iran is a dangerous thing.’”

Aydintasbas also observed that she does not think Trump has the patience or curiosity to grasp that the Kurds are not a monolithic group, though he eventually stated that he did not want them to enter the war as it was complicated enough already.

Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan told the Associated Press (AP) on March 14 that while there is no serious initiative to resume peace negotiations between the warring US and Iran, he believes Tehran is open to back-channel talks.

Fidan, in an interview, said that “the conditions are not very much conducive” to diplomacy as things stand. The Iranians, he added, “feel betrayed” given that for a second time the US attacked them while active negotiations were taking place over their nuclear programme.

However, Fidan also said: “I think they are open to any sensible back-channel diplomacy.”