Chairman of US Joint Chiefs tells CNN an attack wouldn’t accomplish Israel’s long-term goals, says Washington views Tehran as a rational actor, believes it hasn’t decided to make a nuclear weapon.
Dempsey: Israeli strike on Iran would not be prudent
An Israeli attack on Iran would be “destabilizing,” the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, US Army General Martin Dempsey, said Saturday.
“It’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran,” Dempsey said in an interview with CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” scheduled to be broadcast Sunday. The US government is confident the Israelis “understand out concerns,” he said, according to an e-mailed transcript.
“A strike at this time would be destabilizing and wouldn’t achieve their long-term objectives,” Dempsey said of the Israelis. “I wouldn’t suggest, sitting here today, that we’ve persuaded them that our view is the correct view and that they are acting in an ill-advised fashion.”
Dempsey said the economic sanctions imposed on Iran and international pressure are beginning to have an effect, without elaborating. The European Union agreed on Jan. 23 to ban any oil imports from Iran, and the US denied access to its financial system for any foreign bank that conductsbusiness with the Central Bank of Iran.
‘Iran is a rational actor’
“We are of the opinion that Iran is a rational actor,” Dempsey said. “We also know, or we believe we know, that the Iranian regime has not decided” to make a nuclear weapon, he said. Iran says its enrichment of uranium is for making power while Israel says it’s aimed at making weapons.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Saturday called for “tight, ratcheted up” sanctions against Iran to force the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
“I think there is consensus in most capitals of the world that Iran should not be allowed to turn into a nuclear military power,” Barak said at a press conference today in Tokyo at the end of a four-day visit.
Amid US concerns that Israel may initiate military action against Iran’s nuclear sites, the White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon begins a two-day visit to Israel today to discuss Iran and other issues, such as the turmoil in Syria. Iran has been under United Nations investigation since 2003 over suspected nuclear weapons work.
