TEHRAN – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has denounced national security adviser John Bolton after the New York Times reported that he has ordered a plan to be drawn up to attack Iran.

“It is almost impossible to imagine that after the horror of the war in Iraq when we were lied to by the Bush administration and one of the leading architects was this very same, John Bolton,” Sanders told MSNBC on Tuesday.

“You will remember how we got into the Vietnam war, the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and it turns out the so-called attack in the Gulf of Tonkin did not actually take place. It was based on a series of lies,” Sanders also said. “What worries me is that the architect of the effort right now to get us into a war in Iran is the guy who was the architect to getting us into the war in Iraq. That is John Bolton. I worry about provocations on the part of the United States against Iran.”

Sanders, who is running for president in the 2020 elections, also tweeted that “If we go to war with Iran, we will destabilize the entire region and thousands of Americans and Iranians will die.”

“I am working right now with my Republican colleagues to stop this disastrous rush to war,” he added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has also strongly criticized Bolton, among others, for trying to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran.

Zarif has classified Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (bibi), Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed as theB-team  who are working hard to push the U.S. toward a war with Iran.

“While John Bolton and the B-team say the Iranian people ‘deserve better’, they’ve admitted to targeting them with Economic Terrorism —and even war— in a delusional pursuit of ‘regime-change’. But will Donald Trump let them realize their dreams of another Forever War?” Zarif tweeted last month.

MH/