Gordon Philip, Special Assistant to President Obama and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region, told BBC’s Radio 4 Today Programme it could be “very easy” for tensions between Iran, the US and Iraq to escalate in a major war conflict. The overnight decision to kill General Qasem Soleimani sparked fears of World War 3 across the globe and was dubbed an act of terrorism and “extremely serious” for everyone diplomatically involved.
Mr Gordon told the BBC: “The Trump administration has not exactly demonstrated a great capacity for running an efficient, careful national security process.
“Most of these decisions seem to be taken on a whim by the President after a phone call with a foreign leader for some other reason.
“So, it is more than fair to be concerned.”
He added: “Iran will see this as in its neighbourhood and this is about their survival and they will be prepared to fight.
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“And they’re going to find out whether the Trump administration is equally prepared to getting in a tit for tat potentially very serious escalation.”
He continued: “Both sides will try to avoid a major war. It is clear that both would suffer greatly and neither would benefit.
“So both sides will try to avoid a serious escalation but as we’ve just seen in recent days they can miscalculate.
“So I think going forward both sides will want to find that spot that deters the other but doesn’t lead to escalation.
“But it is just really easy to see how someone could miscalculate and then we’re off to the races for much more serious military escalation.
“Both sides will really pay the price for that.”
Former Middle East minister Alistair Burt has said the US launching an airstrike which killed Iran’s most powerful military commander General Qasem Soleimani is “extremely serious”.
Mr Burt told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is no agreement as to a base of the confrontations in the region, there is a completely different narrative put forward by the Iranians for what is happening in the region to that which is put forward by the United States and others – there is no meeting between to two.”
He added that the airstrike could cause “a huge potential escalation” of the conflict, of which “the consequences are unknown”.
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Mr Burt said that it is “very important now to concentrate on what happens next, and for everybody involved diplomatically to do everything they can to try and diffuse the situation”.
He added: “It’s extremely serious.”
Asked whether the UK Government would have been told about the US government’s airstrike plans before they happened, Mr Burt added: “I doubt it.”
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned on Friday the “assassination” of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad.
The airstrike on Baghdad airport is an act of aggression on Iraq and breach of its sovereignty that will lead to war in Iraq, the region, and the world, he said in a statement.