70.2 F
Mobile
58 F
Huntsville
63.3 F
Birmingham
53.3 F
Montgomery

Bradley Byrne: ‘I don’t see World War III coming at all’

A U.S. airstrike that resulted in the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, has many on edge about the prospects of a global war.

According to U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope), such fears are overblown.

During an appearance on Huntsville radio WVNN’s “The Jeff Poor Show,” Byrne reacted to President Donald Trump’s ordered strike on Soleimani. Byrne, a GOP candidate for U.S. Senate said Trump had made the correct decision to order the strike.

“I think he made the right decision,” Byrne said. “Now, I have not seen the precise intelligence that they had available to them. I assume I will get that in a classified briefing later on this week. But you know, this has been coming for a very long time. Iran has asserted itself to be in a state of war with America for over 40 years. Ever since President Trump got out of the nuclear deal with them, and then started putting back in the sanctions, they’ve been ratcheting up their efforts to cause tensions with us. You know, they shot down our drones. They took out half the oil production in Saudi Arabia. They attacked those bases that we have in Iraq back during December. President Trump responded by taking out some of their bases. And then they attack — these are Iranian-backed groups. They attack our embassy in Baghdad hoping that a result similar to what happened in Benghazi or worse, what happened in Iran over 40 years ago. Well, it didn’t work. It didn’t work and President Trump retaliated by taking out this man Soleiman. And I think it has changed the calculus in the Middle East, and that is a good thing.”

On the possibility of this resulting in “World War III,” as some have proclaimed, Byrne said he did not see that as likely.

“I think that they’re way, way overblown,” he said. “I don’t want to in any way try to make light of the fact that Iran will do something in response. They will, and they say they’re going to do it against a military target. Maybe they’re going to be true to their word, maybe they’re not. But this idea that we’ve walked into World War III is just not accurate. This president, Donald Trump, has made it very clear he does not want to be in these wars in the Middle East. He wants them to stop. He wants to talk to the Iranians. They just don’t want to talk because they don’t want to get some sort of peace deal. I don’t see World War III coming at all. But there is a high threat, particularly to our military folks all across the globe. We all need to be on our toes about that. I don’t take it minimally but I think it is overblown to say we’re going to have World War II out of this. That’s just not true.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University, the editor of Breitbart TV and host of “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN in Huntsville.

Don’t miss out!  Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.