While the Department of Defense has outlined China as its "pacing challenge" and Russia as an "acute threat," the threat from Iran is "increasing" as well, according to one DOD official.
There is a real and growing danger that the US-NATO drive to militarily defeat and subjugate Russia will help trigger a major Mideast war, or the expansion of the current war to the Middle East.
In what could deeply unsettle and threaten the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Iran has demonstrated the capability to attack a naval base target by deploying a loitering munition from a landing ship.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Iran must be punished for what he called its ‘complicity in Russian terror’ and accused the regime in Tehran of helping to prolong the war and exacerbate its impact on food and energy supplies.