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Experts Don't See War with Iran Forthcoming
(Jerusalem Post) Omri Nahmias - Is a war between the U.S. and Iran on the horizon? Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told the Jerusalem Post: "There's only one way to fight the United States at this point. And that is through terrorism and insurgency. The idea that Iran would square off with the United States in a conventional conflict is not serious." Schanzer added that sending a carrier group to the Gulf is meant only to send a message. "When you put that into play, it changes the way that your adversary is going to respond to you. They're going to be more fearful, and that's what we call leverage." Ilan Goldenberg, senior fellow and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, told the Post that the U.S. should not expect an immediate crisis, but rather that Iran will once again take a slow-motion crawl toward a nuclear weapon. He added that the risk of military confrontation is overblown by the media. Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of FDD, told the Post: "I think it's dawning on the Iranians that...they may not even make it to January 2021 [the end of Trump's term in office] without a severe balance of payments crisis. They're running out of foreign exchange reserves. The currency is collapsing, there's severe recession. Inflation is skyrocketing. So maybe the Europeans can convince them to come back to the table and we'll see negotiation."