The White House plan to deploy an additional 1,500 troops is based on false pretexts to spark a war with Iran and will only destabilise the region even further, Virginia State Senator Richard Black told Sputnik.
“Any time that we add troops to the Middle East, it is a negative. It never creates a positive result. It continues the destabilisation”, Black said. “We’re sending the troops so that we can protect our troops from being attacked. Well, why don’t we take our troops out of there and then they won’t be attacked? And then we won’t have to worry about it”.
Black said the idea to create stories about ships being attacked and sending Tehran an unrealistic set of demands were part of a plan to spark a war with Iran. According to the state senator, one would think the UAE and the Saudis would immediately have pictures of the damage, but no evidence has been provided.
“We just have claims and assertions, and the assertions are made by the Saudis, by the UAE, both of which want the United States to go as their proxies and to have our troops fight against Iran and to have our troops have their legs blown off”, Black stressed.
The politician said he thinks the United States made these moves to perhaps trigger some miscalculation on the part of the Iranians.
“Iran is not attacking them, it’s not attacking Saudi Arabia, it’s not attacking UAE. But we’re being asked to get involved to create a reason, a pretext for war”, Black continued.
Black also was critical of a list of 12 demands Washington gave Tehran last month that called on Iran to stay out of Syria, stop developing ballistic missiles and halt support for groups like the Houthis in Yemen, among other things.
“They ask Iran… to withdraw all their forces throughout Syria. If that happened, then Syria, which relies considerably on Iran, they would be seriously threatened by al-Qaeda [terrorist group banned in Russia]”, Black said. “And if you withdraw the support that Iran has given to Syria, then once again this is an attempt to turn Syria over to militant jihadists who have promised to behead all the Christians, to enslave all the women Christians and they’ve shown that they’ve done it as they’ve gone along”.
Al-Qaeda is the force that remains in Syria today, Black explained, but the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, banned in Russia) is also still there and is a significant force but they do not hold specific territory.
“They’ve [US-backed terrorists] been probably more brutal than any force in our lifetimes. And these are the people that we have supported directly sometimes, indirectly other times”, Black said.
Black also called ironic the US demand to Iran to end support for senior al-Qaeda leaders.
“Iranians are coming back from the battlefield in caskets. Iran has shed considerable blood fighting against ISIS [Daesh*] and al-Qaeda. And somehow the idea that they are harbouring al-Qaeda leaders is most mysterious. How can we make that claim… when they are out on the battlefield fighting al-Qaeda?” Black wondered. “And so, this idea that Iran is somehow helping al-Qaeda is just absolutely bizarre”.
Meanwhile, Black added, the United States is not fighting al-Qaeda.
“The United States is giving them [al-Qaeda] diplomatic cover in Idlib province. American weapons are getting to al-Qaeda [and] we are giving them to other groups, and other groups sell them”, Black said.
Black also pointed out that Iran would never agree to the demand to open up all sites throughout the country to inspection.
“The Iranians would never accept that — that’s an invitation for spies to get in and to map out in detail every military location, every defensive location that they have in the country”, Black said.
The senator also said that he is in favour of the leaders of Iran and the United States holding a meeting to solve the ongoing tensions.
“I think it is always a good thing to do. I think particularly with president Trump this is very good. He works well on personal relationships”, he said.
At the end of May, President Donald Trump said he would deploy additional troops to the Middle East to protect US service members and interests in the region while US officials blamed Iran for the recently reported attacks on oil tankers off the UAE coast.
