Having recently put all the blame for the Gulf tanker and oil field controversies on Iran, the US is warning of another “audacious” feat, depicting in menacing terms the “trajectory” the Islamic Republic is on. Per Gen. Mckenzie, the US regional commander, this is despite US reinforcements in the area.
Speaking ahead of a Manama security conference, in Bahrain, the home of the Navy's Fifth Fleet, commander of American forces in the Middle East Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, has assumed the latest deployment of 14,000 extra US troops may not have put off Iran from plotting a major attack akin to the one against Saudi Aramco oil fields, and a drone attack in June.
“My judgment is that it is very possible they will attack again”, General McKenzie said, noting that the Gulf reinforcements, including 3,000 troops sent to Saudi Arabia, are intended as a deterrent, not a move to trigger Iranian military action.
In earlier interviews he elaborated on the course he says Iran has taken:
“It's the trajectory and the direction that they're on”, he noted in a second interview later in the week. “The attack on the oil fields in Saudi was stunning in the depth of its audaciousness”, he said of an assault in September that the United States and its European allies blamed on Iran.
“I wouldn't rule that out going forward”.
Referring to the so-called “maximum pressure” sanctions policies that the US has been pursuing vis-a-vis Iran, McKenzie insisted that the Islamic…
