Escalating tensions with Iran are "disturbingly reminiscent" of the lead-up to the Iraq War, Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg told Sunday’s CNN's "State of the Union."
"There's no question that Iran has a pattern of malign activities,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor said. “There's also no question that there is a pattern that is disturbingly reminiscent of the run-up to the war in Iraq in some cases being driven by the same people."
Buttigieg said it should be shocking and “extremely disturbing to all of us” that one of the architects of the Iraq war is the President's national security adviser right now [John Bolton], when the President himself has pretended that he was against the Iraq War all along.”
Buttigieg stressed that “we have learned as a country in my lifetime just how hard it is to end a war. We'd better be working very hard to make sure we don't start one. And you when you look at the destabilizing chain reaction that appears to have been initiated when this president withdrew us from the Iran nuclear deal, I'm very concerned about the stability of the region and the possibility that this is a dynamic that even the president won't be able to control, if it continues to move in the direction of escalation and hostility.”
When pressed as to what action he would take if he was president, Buttigieg said “the first thing I would do is consult with the intelligence community, and not politicize their findings, but try to find out what's going on."
He stressed that, “there's no question that the U.S. has an interest in maintaining the security and safety and freedom of movement in those key shipping lanes, [but] There's also no question that, whatever we do, we need to make sure that we're not contributing to a dynamic that could become more and more unstable.”