A British admiral has warned that a potential US invasion of Iran would be comparable to the invasion of Germany in World War 2.
Admiral Lord West said that the situation with Iran is “highly dangerous” following the assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani by the US in Iraq on Friday.
West told the Daily Star Online that he believes it is “highly likely” that Iran will respond to the attack and claimed that the only way that a full-scale war with Iran would be winnable is with a comparable operation to the invasion of Germany in World War 2.
“If you want to have a full war with Iran, you would have to go to war-footing, call up a couple of million men, and fully take it over like we did with Germany in World War 2".
“And the US are not going to do that, so in the end you are left with a festering sore."
“If you just are relying on a revolution in Iran, you are deluding yourselves", the admiral said.
He went on to claim that there is no doubt that the UK and the US could be drawn into a wider conflict with Iran. He noted that hitting strategic areas would not lead to an Iranian defeat due to Iranians rallying to defend their country.
“We could destroy all their naval units, naval bases, airfields and wipe out their aircraft – but then what are you going to do? The Americans don’t want to invade Iran, if they did that they would have to go onto a war footing".
“So what you are left with is a badly damaged Iran which would have the mild Iranians rallying to the flag and out for vengeance".
Admiral West also outlined that a "peaceful revolution" to topple the Iranian government would not work and that the Trump Administration's scrapping of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal or JCPOA marked the start of the recent rise in tensions.
The JCPOA loosened sanctions on the country and permitted Iran to develop nuclear energy.
While questioning the legality of the attack, Admiral West called Soleimani a “nasty piece of work” for leading Iran's Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Republic's military which the US alleges is responsible for terrorist activities.
Iran has pledged to respond promising “revenge”, “vengeance”, “retaliation”, and rallying national sentiment against the West.
Iran's ambassador to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi told CNN that the assassination was “tantamount to opening a war against Iran”.
“The response for a military action is a military action", he told the US outlet.
Ravanchi told the UN that the attack was a “criminal act” and a “gross violation of the principles of international law”.
After the attack, Trump declared that Soleimani's "reign of terror is over" and that the action was intended to prevent a war as opposed to starting one, and that he will defend Americans if they are threatened.
Pentagon chiefs and President Trump both claim that Soleimani was planning to conduct further attacks on US forces stationed in Iraq and the Middle East.
The strike against Soleimani was personally ordered US President Donald Trump while he was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, without informing Congress or the UK government.
It directly followed the storming of the US embassy in Iraq in response to airstrikes on pro-Iranian militia groups in the country which killed up to 27 Hezbollah fighters.
Tensions between the US have been rising since Trump's withdrawal form the JCPOA, resulting in the tit-for-tat seizure of oil tankers between Britain and Iran in July 2019, followed by a drone attack claimed by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on a key Saudi Aramco oil facility in September.