{"id":79619,"date":"2020-03-14T16:45:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T21:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/persian-heritage.com\/wordpress\/?p=79619"},"modified":"2020-04-14T15:29:31","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T20:29:31","slug":"us-fears-iran-facilitating-spread-of-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2020\/03\/14\/us-fears-iran-facilitating-spread-of-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"US Fears Iran Facilitating Spread of Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"

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VOA – WASHINGTON – Iran\u2019s struggle to contain its coronavirus pandemic could have a ripple effect across the Middle East, with some U.S. officials suggesting it could further destabilize an already volatile region. In particular, military officials worry that the regime\u2019s slow response has quietly turned Iran into a launching pad for the virus, helping it to spread far beyond what officials in Tehran have been willing to acknowledge. “Iran sits in the middle of the [Middle East] theater, so their ability to pass that infection to other states is very worrisome,” Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and South Asia, said while briefing lawmakers this past week, noting the \u201cpermeability and porousness of the borders.\u201d Making matters worse, U.S. officials believe the extent of the coronavirus\u2019 grip on Iran has been vastly underreported, reaching well into the upper echelons of Iran\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

“A number of people have died as a result of that in Iran’s senior leadership cadre,” McKenzie told reporters Friday.<\/p>\n

“People are separated. They’re distrustful,” he added, warning the virus\u2019 toll could make Iran\u2019s leadership more willing to strike out at the U.S. and Western targets in the region, if only as a distraction to the problems at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA – WASHINGTON – Iran\u2019s struggle to contain its coronavirus pandemic could have a ripple effect across the Middle East, with some U.S. officials suggesting it could further destabilize an already volatile region. In particular, military officials worry that the regime\u2019s slow response has quietly turned Iran into a launching pad for the virus, helping […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":84307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}