Trump's decision on Holy Quds fundamental mistake: US expert

John Mearsheimer said that it was a 'fundamental mistake' for Trump to declare that he was going to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Holy Quds city to recognize it as the capital of Zionist regime of Israel.

Palestinians say Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, is the capital of a Palestinian state.

Trump's decision prompted strong criticism by the international community, including the US allies in Europe. World leaders have denounced it as a move in violation of UN resolutions and international laws.

'It was a major mistake and huge numbers of foreign policy experts in the United States think that he made a major mistake,' said the American expert speaking at the University of Tehran on Monday.

'And I think around the world almost everyone thinks that it was a major mistake.'

There is no way that it can be explained by Realpolitik or realism, and it was not a move that makes strategic sense for the United States, the American political theoretician said.

'It will cause the United states all sorts of problems around the world now and in the future,' he warned Washington of the decision's ramification.

Mearsheimer, the Professor of R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, is the co-author of a book titled 'The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy'. The book made the New York Times bestsellers and has been translated into nineteen languages.

He believes that the recent controversial decision by Trump 'was largely a function of domestic politics'.

Hardline supporters of Israel in the United States who opposed President Trump have been putting enormous pressure on him to move the embassy and to recognize HolyQuds as the capital of Israel, Mearsheimer said.

'And he caved in to those supporters,' he said

This is not surprising, he said, because Trump has less support in the United States than any previous president at this point of his presidency.

'He was looking to shore up his support among people by making this decision,' he said, adding that the move does not make any sense from the strategic point of view.

With such a move, a Zionist regime that claims control all of occupied territories will be, if it is not already, an 'apartheid' regime like 'white South Africa', he said.

'And the question is whether or not Israel can sustain itself over the long term as an apartheid state; that is the big question regarding Israel's future,' he said.

The founder of Offensive Realism theory also expressed his doubt on the survival of the Zionist regime as an apartheid regime by raising the question 'Will it be able to do what white South Africa was not able to do?'

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