The Iranian threat is rising in the Persian Gulf region — and Tehran is likely to continue lashing out despite the deployment of 14,000 additional U.S troops, the top commander in the Middle East says.
Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the head of the military’s Central Command, said Iran’s past behavior is troubling.
“I think the strike on Saudi Aramco in September is pretty indicative of a nation that is behaving irresponsibly,” he said, Foreign Policy reported, referring to the Sept. 14 Iran-sponsored attack on Saudi facilities that took half of Riyadh’s oil production offline.
“My judgment is that it is very possible they will attack again.”
McKenzie didn’t offer specific evidence that Iran was plotting an imminent attack against targets like oil facilities or desalinization plants — citing only the ability of American military and spy agencies to detect patterns of Iranian activities, the New York Times reported.
“Iran is under extreme pressure,” he said, referring to economic sanctions b the Trump administration.
Speaking at a regional security conference in Manama, Bahrain, home of the Navy’s Fifth Fleet, McKenzie pledged a continued American security commitment to the Gulf despite a Trump administration policy shift to prioritize threats from China and Russia, the Times reported.
He also urged regional partners like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Oman to work with Washington.
“Unfortunately, sometimes the Iranian regime has proved itself to be the bully in the neighborhood,” he said, the news outlets reported. “And the only way to stand up to a bully is to do it together.”
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