U.S. top military chief: Iran ‘core’ threat

The U.S. military chief said Iran was “the very core” of the challenge to U.S. interests in the Middle East.

“The very core of the challenge we face there is Iran,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday, addressing the American Jewish Committee’s annual Washington event. “Their irresponsible influence extends well beyond Iraq and its borders,” he said, referring to U.S. claims that Iran is behind an intensification of violence in Iraq.

“Their pursuit of nuclear weapons and their pursuit of terrorism and the perfect nightmare that is the two is a threat to Israel and a throughout the region,” Mullen said.

Marking Yom HaShoah, Holocaust memorial day, Mullen articulated an overarching U.S. policy of containing genocidal threats.

“The United States, Israel and the responsible nations of the world must stand together and never, ever let that happen again,” he said. “Not to the Jewish people, not to the American people and not to anyone in the world.”