US military is against starting war with Iran: US foreign policy expert

Jatras, a former Senate foreign policy adviser in Washington, made the remarks while commenting on a statement by the general overseeing the US military’s involvement in the Middle East.

General Joseph Votel, who heads the US Central Command, said on Thursday that the United States is not “on the road to war with Iran,” despite the fact that some Trump administration officials have stepped up rhetoric against Tehran.

"I don't think we're seeking to go to war with Iran, and I don't think that's what we're focused on," he said.

Jatras said that it is “somewhat reassuring that a top American general would say that we are not on the road to war with Iran. I don’t know how much comfort we can take from that.”

“It’s very clear that the top non-military officials are dedicated to a regime change policy in Iran. They hope to do that by fomenting internal discontent, by crushing Iran’s financial and economic system, by cutting off its foreign trade and by supporting the terrorist groups like the MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq or MKO), which they hope to install as the new government,” he stated.

“If that failed, will they consider a military option? They very likely might want to on the pattern of Iraq 2003.  On the other hand, I think that would result in some resistance from the professional military who do not want to see another horrible, open-ended wasteful military adventure, especially one that would be as massive as Iran would be,” the analyst concluded.

A warning by retired US General Wesley Clark that Iran has been a target of US intentions issued more than a decade ago appeared last month to be moving closer to realization.

Trump, in the anti-Iran remarks made at the UN General Assembly's General Debate and amplified as he chaired a meeting of the Security Council, seemed to confirm the claim made by the former chair of the Joint Chief' of Staff under President Bill Clinton that Iran was on a list of seven countries that Washington planned to invade and destroy.

The retired 4-star US Army general, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia, said in the 2007 interview that the purpose of the 9/11 attack was to take out the governments of seven countries in five years. These seven countries were Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran. All of these countries have been directly or indirectly been the object of US aggression.