BICOM

Iran’s Defence Minister said yesterday that if there is any conflict with the United States under its new President, then the result would be the destruction of Israel and Gulf states.

Speaking to the semi-official Mehr news agency, Iran’s Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan said that although “considering Trump’s character and that he measures the cost of everything in dollars, it does not seem likely that he would take strong action against our country,” it could transpire that “enemies may want to impose a war on us based on false calculations”.

In this scenario, said Dehghan, “such a war would mean the destruction of the Zionist regime [Israel] … and will engulf the whole region and could lead to a world war.” Iranian leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction and Tehran has long backed Islamist groups that attack Israel.

Dehghan also predicted that “among other consequences of the war, would be the destruction of the city-states on the southern shore of the Persian Gulf,” such as Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who like Israel oppose Iran’s regional ambitions.

During the recent US election campaign, Trump described last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers (US, UK, France, Russia, China and Germany) as “disastrous”. He strongly indicated that he would dismantle or re-negotiate the accord once in office.

Yesterday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CBS’ 60 Minutes that he intends to discuss the possibility of reversing the Iran nuclear deal with Trump. Netanyahu, who has been a consistently vocal opponent of the agreement, said: “There are ways, various ways of undoing it [the nuclear deal].” He added: “I think what options we have are much more than you think. Many more. … I have about five things in my mind. I’d like to talk to the President.”

Netanyahu also noted that the nuclear deal had “brought the Arab states and Israel closer together” and that many now view Israel as their ally “against the forces of militant Islam”.