(Wall Street Journal) Dion Nissenbaum - U.S. officials said they are increasingly confident Iran and its Mideast allies are looking to avoid a head-on fight with America as the U.S. seeks to keep pressure on Iran. "The combination of maximum economic pressure and restoring deterrence by credible threat of military force, if attacked, is going to do more to advance peace and stability in the region than a policy of accommodation with the regime," said Brian Hook, who oversees administration policy toward Iran at the State Department. After the U.S. strike on Iranian Maj.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Iraqi lawmakers pushed through a nonbinding measure calling for America to withdraw all its troops. But Iraq's caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has now tempered his calls for a U.S. troop pullout, saying he will allow the next government to decide. "The most important consideration here is that Iraq is not absorbed into a Shiite axis led by Iran," said Dore Gold, a former director-general of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who is now president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
2020-01-21 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive