Why Donald Trump needs a short-term win in Iran before he visits Xi Jinping in China

The surge in US service members in the Middle East suggests the Iran war could become a protracted, low-intensity conflict as Donald Trump eyes a trip to China in May, Chinese military analysts say.The deployment of elite forces and the US president’s recent tactics in Venezuela indicated Washington was highly aware of and seeking to avoid a costly drawn-out war like Vietnam, the observers added.On Sunday, The New York Times and The Washington Post reported that several hundred US Army Rangers and Navy Seals had arrived in the Middle East, joining roughly 3,500 marines and sailors who were deployed earlier and bringing the number of American troops in the region to over 50,000, an increase of about 10,000 since the conflict began.The deployment gives Trump additional military options to secure the Strait of Hormuz, effectively closed by Iran, or seize Kharg Island, Iran’s oil hub in the northern Persian Gulf, or extract nearly 1,000lbs (453kg) of highly enriched uranium from the country, according to the reports.Smoke rises from buildings in Tehran, the Iranian capital, on Sunday. The US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28. Photo: XinhuaLi Cheng, founding director of the University of Hong Kong’s Centre on Contemporary China and the World, called a full-scale US ground invasion of Iran “unlikely”.