War College Professor weighs-in on Iran attacks

President Trump addressed the nation Wednesday morning hours after Iran fired 15 ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq, and now the president is calling on some of America’s closest allies to help put an end to Iran’s effort in making nuclear weapons.

Iranian officials responded to the attack saying that the U.S. airstrike was a slap in the face.

The Iranian attack comes after the U.S took out Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College who spoke independently is calling the attack “warning shots,” but believes the US took out a real threat in Soleimani.

“The United States definitely escalated tensions by killing Soleimani but I think Soleimani was a legitimate target,” Nichols said. “The Iranians were trying to show that they were willing to escalate the conflict but without pushing the president into a corner where he was going to have to respond. I think that’s why the purposely tried not to kill Americans.”

Nichols said that although Mr. Trump said that Iran is standing down, he believes things are far from over.

“The Iranians measure time in a lot longer periods than we do. We think in terms of days or weeks they think in terms of years,” he said.

President Trump announced sanctions against Iran but Nichols thinks it may not do a whole lot.

“The problem with the sanctions is we’re probably not going to have our allies and other countries of the world jumping on board with us,” Nichols said. “The sanctions could hurt Iran but the Iranians have other options they didn’t have three or four or five years ago.”

Nichols said both sides have made their point and that it’s time to see what happens next. With Iran being a top ten military in the world, Nichols said it”is not a country that we would go to war with lightly.

What the attack did show, according to Nichols, is that if Iran missed its target purposely, its military capabilities are further advanced than originally thought.