Mayor de Blasio warned Friday a war with Iran would lead to “multiple acts of terror” in the U.S., asserting President Trump was wrong to assume a possible confrontation sparked by the airstrike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani would be over quickly.
“If this turns into a full-scale shooting war, and right now that’s the direction it’s going, we would be fools to assume that this doesn’t end up with multiple acts of terror here in the United States, eventually,” de Blasio said on MSNBC Friday.
Iran has vowed “harsh retaliation” for Soleimani’s death after the general was killed along with six others in an American drone strike in Baghdad ordered by Trump.
Asked about the prospect of war with Iran this week, the president suggested that “wouldn’t be a good idea for Iran.”
“It wouldn’t last very long,” Trump said Tuesday before Thursday’s deadly drone strike. “It would go very quickly.”
But De Blasio insisted a conflict with Iran “is not something we resolve in weeks.”
“I want to absolutely part company with the president when he said that if there was a war, it’d be a short war,” the mayor said on MSNBC. “I think it’s the exact opposite way around. If there’s a war with Iran, it’s going to be a very long war and not a conventional war, but a war in which Iranian proxy forces all over the world attack American assets, American personnel and the American homeland.”
He added that’s why the U.S. “should stop this march to war” and that Congress should deliberate to decide if an escalation “is going to make us safer or less safe.”
The NYPD deployed counter-terrorism resources shortly after the airstrike to prepare for possible retaliation from Iran, though city officials have stressed there’s no known credible threats against New York at this point.
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