Reuters reported on July 26 that in his response to questions from the Armed Services Committee, General Dempsey indicated: “With its nuclear activities and its surrogate activities in southern Iraq, there is a high potential that Iran will make a serious miscalculation of U.S. resolve.”
Asked what his message to Iran would be, Dempsey who is expected to succeed Mike Mullen as Joint Chiefs Chairman said: “It would be a gross miscalculation to believe that we will simply allow that to occur without taking serious consideration or reacting to it.”
Dempsey, whose mission in Iraq ended seven years ago said his contacts in Iraq told him “Iran’s activities in southern Iraq are intended to produce some kind of Beirut-like moment (as in 1984) and, in so doing, to send a message that they have expelled us from Iraq.”