Blair: War on Iran has to be an option

Despite being under fire for joining the US to invade Iraq, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has advocated keeping an attack on Iran on the table.

Blair, speaking on ABC News’s ‘This Week’ on Sunday said if he were still in power, he ‘wouldn’t take the risk’ of allowing Iran to gain nuclear weapons, adding an attack has to be an option.

“It is a problem,” Blair said. “I don’t know. You don’t know. You’re making a calculation of risk. When you’re in the hot seat of decision making you have to decide. Maybe if they got them, they would never use them. But I don’t think, if I was a leader today, and certainly, this is the view I took then, I don’t think I would take the risk.”

The British official urged the international community to go for tougher action against Iran and “prevent the Iranians from getting a nuclear bomb.”

He then argued that he would not want to see a military confrontation with Iran, but stressed that preemptive military action against Tehran could be inevitable.

“I don’t want to see it, but I’m saying you cannot exclude it because the primary objective has got to be to prevent them from getting a nuclear weapon,” said Blair.

This is all while Washington and Tel Aviv have also been talking about the possibility of a military attack against Iran’s nuclear installations, accusing Iran of seeking atomic bombs under the guise of its nuclear program.

The latest US threat against Iran was posed almost last month by Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen.

Mullen said the US military was prepared to attack Iran, if that would deter the state from acquiring ‘nuclear weapons.’

The allegations and the unilateral sanctions against Iran come while Israel and the US possess a nuclear arsenal and America has used atomic weapons in the past.

Iranian military officials, however, downplay the foreign threats, warning of ‘crushing response to aggressors.’