‘Possible war against Iran has more risks than advantages’

A former senior US official has warned against any military aggression on Iran, saying the risks of such an adventure are far greater for Tel Aviv and Washington than any potential gains to which they might aspire.


“The risks that we and others would take including Israel are far more significant than the advantages we might achieve,” Thomas Pickering, former undersecretary of state for political affairs and former US envoy to the United Nations, said in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 28.

He also challenged the notion, repeatedly cited by US and Israeli war hawks for a strike on Iran, that an attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities would set Tehran’s nuclear energy program back for several years.

“I don’t agree with that. I think that it is, in my view, a seriously flawed question, particularly now when we haven’t exhausted the other options,” Pickering, who also served as ambassador to Israel during the Reagan administration and ambassador to Russia during the Clinton administration, said.

The former Washington official further warned that any confrontation with Iran would spur the Islamic Republic to tap into its “great possibilities for asymmetrical reactions” to which, he added, both Israel and Americans overseas are vulnerable.


/PressTV/