The former US special representative for Iran has censured the administration of President Donald Trump for choosing the “wrong option” of attacking nuclear sites inside the Islamic Republic, which he said would have “unpredictable” consequences.
“So, I do think a military option was the wrong one for all kinds of reasons. It doesn’t fully take care of the problem. It leads to all kinds of uncertainties and unpredictable outcomes that I think we’re going to live with, not just in the coming days, weeks, but also months and years. So I think that it was the wrong option to take,” Robert Malley said in an interview with the American cable news channel NBC on Wednesday.
He also noted that the people who thought that the Israeli-US strikes were going to lead to an uprising in Iran were wrong, as the raids by foreign regimes did not just target Iranian nuclear facilities, but also hospitals, and killed civilians.
He further cited a number of his Iranian-American friends as saying that they were becoming more nationalist amid the unprovoked assault.
On June 13, Israel launched a surprise and unprovoked act of aggression against Iran, assassinating dozens of senior military commanders and nuclear scientists in targeted strikes and setting off a 12-day war that killed at least 1,062 people in the country.
More than a week later, the United States also entered the war by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites in a grave violation of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
In response, the Iranian Armed Forces targeted strategic sites across the occupied territories as well as the al-Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest American military base in West Asia.
On June 24, Iran, through its successful retaliatory operations against both the Israeli regime and the US, managed to impose a halt to the illegal aggression.
Iran ‘not going to give up’ under pressure
In the interview, Malley said that Israel initially failed to block the 2015 nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, despite all its efforts in the US, but it had more success when President Trump was in office.
Israel did not like the prospect of an Iran that would have more international economic transactions with Europe, and with the US perhaps, so “they did what they could to undo it,” he added.
He said that many people in the US believed Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPOA and ensuing maximum pressure campaign would prompt Iran to give up its nuclear program and surrender, but “It didn’t happen.”
“I think where we have it often wrong is we think that the threat of sanctions and the imposition of sanctions is enough to get a country to surrender,” he pointed out.
“That was what, certainly, President Trump thought, and also some others, some Democrats have thought over the years, just maximum coercion, sanctions, threat of military intervention, Iran is going to give up what they have … they’re not going to give up their one asset just because of coercion. They’re going to want something in exchange.”
Meanwhile, the former US envoy emphasized that developing ballistic missiles has always been among Iran’s priorities, with or without sanctions.
He also said that during the imposed war on Iran in the 1980s, Iraq was being supported by the United States, the Persian Gulf countries, Europeans, and Russia, while the Islamic Republic “really was almost on its own.”
He further said that besides Israel, the US military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan also posed a threat to the Islamic Republic.
Iran has on several occasions warned that, in addition to Israel’s clandestine nuclear activities and the regime’s acts of aggression against it, the foreign military presence in the region is a cause of concern and instability.
Iranian officials say regional countries are well capable of keeping the region secure and safe on their own without any foreign interference or intervention.