US CENTCOM chief drumming up support for war on Iran: Analyst

An American political analyst says the US CENTCOM’s chief has, through his recent antagonistic comments targeting Iran, been trying to drum up support among American neoconservatives and Islamophobes for war against the Islamic Republic.

Rodney Martin, a former congressional staffer based in Los Angeles, made the comments to Press TV on Sunday, a day after General Kenneth McKenzie said during a tour of the Persian Gulf region that the US was “to continue to reach out to our partners and friends in the region to ensure that we make common cause against the threat of Iran."

"I believe we'll have the resources necessary to deter Iran from taking actions that will be dangerous," the military official, who commands one of Pentagon’s war-oriented arms, had added.

Martin dismissed the remarks as “hyperbolic propaganda [intended] to increase war support and aggression against Iran.”

He described the “worn-out, old, desperate comments” as means of “fearmongering” and increasing backing among “neocons and the Islamophobic base in America to create that environment that was promulgated in the run-up to wars by the US against Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan.”

While trying to buy support for such potential military actions, US officials always “try to fabricate unspecific actions that there is a danger,” he said.

“It's always the CENTCOM, that’s always the military arm, i.e. the terrorist arm, that promulgates the American actions in the region,” Martin noted.

The only actions that Iran has taken have been in conjunction with Iraq and Syria and Russia in defeating “the Saudis and American terrorist organization ISIL (Daesh),” Martin added. He was referring to the military advisory assistance, which Iran has been providing to Baghdad and Damascus at their request and its coordination with Russia in the face of the Takfiri terrorist group that has been widely reported to be in receipt of Riyadh, Washington, and their allies’ support.

“I am just wondering what Gen. McKenzie means by dangerous activities by Iran,” Martin expressed.

Earlier this month, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic designated the US administration as a “supporter of terrorism” and the US CENTCOM -- including all its affiliated bases, units, and forces -- “a terrorist organization” pursuant to a decision by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the country’s top security body.

PressTV-Iran top military body warns ‘terrorist’ US CENTCOM

Iran’s most senior military body vows to “spare no effort” in fighting the “terrorist” American forces operating in West Asia in support of the country’s IRGC, a day after Washington blacklisted the elite military force.

The decision came in response to an earlier move by Washington to formally designate the IRGC as “a foreign terrorist organization.”

Majlis (Iran’s Parliament) has ratified a motion authorizing action against potential endangerment of the country’s interests by the US forces and their allies.

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