Washington: The nation’s top military official in the Middle East on Wednesday said Iran is one of the greatest threats to the United States today and has increased its “destabilising role” in the region.
“I believe that Iran is operating in what I call a grey zone,” Commander of the US Central Command, Army General Joseph Votel, told the House Armed Services Committee in testimony on Wednesday. “And it’s an area between normal competition between states — and it’s just short of open conflict.”
The general said Iran is exploiting this area in a variety of different ways, through things such as “lethal aid facilitation,” the use of “surrogate forces” and cyber activities, among other things. He also believes Iran poses “the greatest long-term threat to stability” in the entire region.
US Central Command is responsible for US security interests in an area stretching from the Gulf region into Central Asia. It includes more than 80,000 soldiers on land, sea and air as well as the ongoing campaign to defeat Daesh in Iraq and Syria as well as the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“We need to look at opportunities where we can disrupt through military means or other means their [Iran] activities,” he said. “We need to look at opportunities where we can expose and hold them accountable for the things that they are doing.”
Votel said he gets regular reports on Iran’s use of boats to harass US military and others in international waters off its coast, with around 300 incidents in the past year alone. Some, he said, could be considered “unprofessional” or “unsafe.”
“We are paying extraordinarily close attention to this, but I feel very confident in our ability to protect ourselves and to continue to pursue our missions,” he said.
