Worries flare that U.S., Iran are closer to war
International worries flared into the open Tuesday that the Trump administration is sliding toward war with Tehran amid skepticism about its claims that Iran poses a growing threat to the U.S. and its allies in the Persian Gulf and beyond.
The U.S. military rebutted the doubts about such a threat, and President Donald Trump denied a report that the administration has updated plans to send more than 100,000 troops to counter Iran if necessary. But Trump then stirred the controversy further by saying, “Would I do that? Absolutely.”
The day of turmoil was set in motion when a British general contradicted the administration’s claim of a rising Iranian threat in the region.
“No, there’s been no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,” said Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, a senior officer in the U.S.-backed coalition fighting the Islamic State group. Ghika, speaking in a video conference from coalition headquarters in Baghdad, told reporters at the Pentagon that the coalition monitors the presence of Iranian-backed forces “along with a whole range of others because that’s the environment we’re in.”
But he added, “There are a substantial number of militia groups in Iraq and Syria, and we don’t see any increased threat from any of them at this stage.”
Late in the day, In a rare public rebuttal of an allied military officer, U.S. Central Command said Ghika’s remarks “run counter to the identified credible threats” from Iranianbacked forces in the Mideast. In a written statement, Central Command said the coalition in Baghdad has increased the alert level for all service members in Iraq and Syria.
“As a result, (the coalition) is now at a high level of alert as we continue to closely monitor credible and possibly imminent threats to U.S. forces in Iraq,” the statement said.
Trump, who has repeatedly argued for avoiding long-term conflicts in the Mideast, discounted at the White House a New York Times report that the U.S. has updated plans that could send up to 120,000 troops to counter Iran if it attacked American forces.
“Would I do that? Absolutely,” Trump told reporters. “But we have not planned for that. Hopefully, we’re not going to have to plan for that. If we did that, we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that.”
Reinforcing Trump’s denial, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a joint news conference in Sochi with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “We fundamentally do not seek war with Iran.”