Former Iranian Minister of Defense Gen. Hossein Dehghan, currently an advisor for defense affairs to Supreme Leader Khamenei, said in a June 20, 2019 interview on Al-Nujaba TV (Iraq) that the Americans are fully aware that their assets in the Middle East can be "obliterated" by Iran's missiles and that they know that a war in the region would not be a "walk in the park." He said that the behavior of Trump and the U.S. is an indication that they fear the break out of war because they cannot gain global legal legitimacy or assemble an international coalition for such a war. General Dehghan also said that in the event of a war in the region, Iran would uproot Israel and totally erase it from the face of the Earth, and that America would find itself in the "garbage bin of history." He expressed the opinion that such a war will not take place because of how powerful Iran is.
Gen. Hossein Dehghan: "It has become clear what is important to the [Americans] is to protect the lives of their soldiers, and the equipment in their bases in the region. They know full well that most of those bases are within the range of our missiles, and that our missiles can totally obliterate those bases. They consider this even before they take into account the lives and property of their allies. Trump proved once again that he is merely an agent of his administration's interests, that a war in this region would not be a walk in the park, that the United States is by no means ready for war, and that it completely understands how strong Iran is.
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"What we understand from the behavior of the Americans is that they fear very much the break out of a war in the region. They are not ready for this, and they cannot assemble an international coalition, because there is no U.N. resolution to begin with. They don't have global legal consensus to do this.
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"Israel has realized that this war would not be a walk in the park. The flame of this war will move immediately to Israel. Israel knows that Iran will erase its entity and uproot it from existence in case of a war.
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"In my personal opinion, this war will not take place – not because America does not want war, but because Iran is strong enough to engage in confrontation. Iran would achieve a great victory, and America would find itself in the garbage bin of history. There would no longer be an Israel on the land of Palestine. We would totally erase it from the face of the Earth."