Donald Trump’s bombing of Iran may actually have strengthened the country’s ruling regime, according to a BBC expert.

Gordon Corera, the corporation’s security correspondent, said “the expectation that it’s suddenly going to collapse … doesn’t feel likely at the moment”.

The US president has repeatedly insisted that Iran’s leaders have all been killed, and has even claimed the war is already won.

But speaking on Radio 4′s Today programme on Wednesday, Corera said that was premature.

“We’ve seen that in the past with regimes that looked stable but then suddenly disintegrate and it’s very difficult to see what kind of factional maneuvering might be going on beneath the surface between those who want to make a deal and those who want to keep going,” he said.

“But all the signs are from the outside that the killing of leaders in Iran has not yet pushed it to that point, that it’s consolidating rather than weakening the regime for the moment, but that could change.

“I think the expectation that it’s suddenly going to collapse the regime, it doesn’t feel likely at the moment.”

Corera said Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz to prevent oil tankers getting through has also made it “much harder for Donald Trump to declare victory”.

He said the move, which has sent oil prices soaring and rocked the global economy, also raises the prospect of the conflict becoming a “forever war”.

“Having an angry regime left there in Iran able to close the Strait at will will be something that worries the US, so they have to make a decision, which is do they want to try and remove that ability, do they want to escalate the war to take on Iran more directly,” Corera said.

“That will be the decision for Donald Trump. Does he want to push this harder to prevent one option of a forever war, which is an angry Iranian regime in place, potentially with some nuclear material, potentially with the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, or does he want to try and finish it?

“But if finishing it means ground troops, that creates a different potential for a forever war.”

He added: “I think the decisions for Donald Trump are getting very difficult at this point and potentially consequential for what kind of short term or long term conflict the US may be getting into.”