RIYADH – If Saudi Arabia doesn’t succeed in continuing to impose economicand political sanctions to terminate Iran’s nuclear program, they arelikely to go to war with Iran in 10-15 years, the kingdom’s Minister ofDefense and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Wall Street Journallink>inan interview this week.
The crown prince called on the international community to create morepressure on the Iranian regime so as to avoid a military conflict.
“We have to succeed so as to avoid military conflict,” the royal said. “Ifwe don’t succeed in what we are trying to do, we will likely have war withIran in 10-15 years.”
The nuclear agreement had been made by Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama,which loosened sanctions on the country in return for promises to curbtheir nuclear program.
The agreement has been continuously criticized as it made way for theKhamenei regime to meddle in Arab countries’ affairs, the crown princestated. Following the nuclear deal, Iran has been visibly building itsinfluence in Syria and Iraq, and supplying Yemen’s Houthi militia andrebels with weaponry used against Saudi Arabia.
More recently, Saudi forces intercepted seven Yemeni rebel missilestargeting major cities, including Riyadh. It was the first attack theinvolved a casualty. The missile remains were later discovered to be ofIranian making.
In the interview, the prince dismissed the attacks as a sign of weakness.“They want to do whatever they can do before they collapse,” he said of theHouthi militia.
He added that the kingdom had no choice but to intervene in the Yemencrisis, or else foreign terrorist groups would have harbored there.“If we didn’t act in 2015 we would have had Yemen divided in half betweenthe Houthis and al Qaeda,” the crown prince said.