Former CIA director says military action against Iran “a very bad option”

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) John McLaughlin has warned against any US military strike on Iran, urging dialogue and diplomacy to resolve American concerns on Iran's nuclear program.

According to Press TV, speaking during a panel discussion in Washington on Tuesday, Jan 17, McLaughlin reasoned that taking a military action against Iran “would be a very bad option” since the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement would spare no effort to support the Tehran government.

"One of the reasons (against a military option) is that Iran does have this relationship with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not attacked American interests in recent years, but has lots of plans on the library shelf for doing that in the event we got into a confrontation with Iran," McLaughlin explained.

"And Hezbollah of course has been present in the United States. So one of the big problems with Iran is if you get into an open confrontation, a military confrontation, you risk a cycle of retaliation and response with great difficulty seeing where the end point is," he added.

Meanwhile, escalating tensions over Iran's enrichment of uranium for nuclear energy, which has shifted to an underground mountain bunker better protected from possible air strikes, has raised fears for the flow of world oil supplies. Tehran has threatened to choke the West's supply of Gulf oil if its exports are hit by sanctions.

China, Japan and India are Iran's top three buyers, taking more than 40 percent of its crude exports. The European Union, which collectively buys another fifth or so of Iran's exported crude, has committed to banning imports of oil from Tehran, an OPEC member and the world's No. 5 crude exporter.