By Reginald Johnson
Although there's still hope for a diplomatic solution to settle the dispute between the United States and Iran, chances remain high that the US and Israel will attack the Middle Eastern country.
And should war break out with Iran, a global conflict involving the major powers could be triggered, and the possibility that nuclear weapons will be used is not out of the question.
That's the view of one the most prominent US foreign policy critics, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs.
Speaking on the Danny Haiphong podcast recently, Sachs said: "No war is inevitable, but this war is likely. It's championed by Israel, and Israel is running American foreign policy in the Middle East."
Sachs added that US President Donald Trump is a "puppet" of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who, he said, "has wanted a US attack on Iran for 30 years."
The former advisor to the UN Secretary-General and now teacher at Columbia made his remarks as tensions build between Washington and Tehran, with Trump demanding that Iran end its nuclear development program and threatening to use military force against Iran if it refuses to do so. Talks are ongoing between the two nations, but there's skepticism about whether the negotiations are going anywhere.
Sachs that the situation vis a vis Iran is "fraught with danger."
Unlike other countries like Venezuela, Syria or Somalia that US has been able to attack with little or no pushback, Iran would be a much more formidable opponent. Iran is a much larger country with a strong ballistic missile system; it has a nuclear energy program which could be retooled to build a nuclear bomb, if leaders chose to do that; and it has major powers for allies, in Russia and China, both nuclear-armed.
"Iran is not isolated in this and their friends are many, and some are nuclear-armed. This is just the kind of thing that can absolutely lead to a disastrous cycle of escalation." Sachs said.
"This could go nuclear," he said.
Sachs said it was critical at this point for the leaders of other large countries that have a stake in the Middle East, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, to get involved and "explain to Mr. Trump, 'Don't do this.' "
" And whether that is enough remains to be seen," he said.
