Russia Warns Against US Attack on Iran

The foreign minister says it would "trigger a chain reaction"

Russia has strongly objected to Western belligerence towards its allies Syria and Iran, warning that a military assault on the Iranian regime could cause a “chain reaction” that would destabilize the entire world.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, vowed to veto any United Nations proposal for military intervention in Syria and promised especially to do all they could to prevent a military strike on Iran.

“The consequences [of attacking Iran] will be extremely grave,” he said. “It’s not going to be an easy walk. It will trigger a chain reaction and I don’t know where it will stop.” Russia has even been training its military on scenarios related to the crisis of a possible military conflict in Iran.

Russia has supported some sanctions on Iran, but has refused to comply with any additional sanctions. The U.S. has heaped some of the harshest economic sanctions on Iran ever conceived and has been pressuring its allies in the European Union and Asia-Pacific to embargo Iran’s oil, or at least reduce it significantly.

The sanctions could result in a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of what Iraq experienced in the 1990s, with approximately 500,000 children dying as a result of the U.S.-led sanctions after the Gulf War of 1990-91. The Obama administration claims it is applying the sanctions to convince Iran to stop enriching uranium.

But there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, as the Obama administration has admitted. And the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community as well as the latest IAEA report is that Iran’s enrichment is so far civilian in nature.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.