美国参谋长联席会议前主席、退役海军上将马伦(Mike Mullen)周日说，他怀疑美国能否成功实现伊朗的政权更迭。
“我们在伊拉克的记录相当糟糕，我们实际上选择了领导人，而在阿富汗，我们选择了领导人。所以，这是一项非常非常艰巨的任务，”马伦告诉《本周》的联合主持人玛莎·拉达兹。
在美国打阿富汗和伊拉克战争期间，马伦曾在奥巴马总统和布什总统手下担任参谋长联席会议主席。
唐纳德·特朗普总统最近几天提出了伊朗政权更迭的可能性。特朗普表示，美国应该参与选择伊朗的下一任最高领导人。
特朗普要求伊朗人“无条件投降”，但马伦表示，他不希望他们放下武器，即使他们的最高领袖和几名高级官员被杀。
“最高领袖已经去世，但我不认为我们正在谈论的政权更迭仅仅代表了这一点，”马伦说。“为了确保自己能够生存下去，他们将牺牲他们所拥有的一切。”
与伊朗的战争周日进入第九天，伊朗的报复在整个地区越来越广泛。马伦说，他担心冲突会以不可预测的方式蔓延。
“战争扩大了，目标改变了，你没有预料到的情况出现了，”马伦说。"我担心这已经成为一场广泛的地区性战争."
这场战争的后果也开始延伸到中东以外。截至周日上午，美国汽车协会显示，自2月28日第一次袭击以来，天然气价格上涨了0.47美元，这是伊朗关闭霍尔木兹海峡的结果，这是世界石油供应的关键通道。
“我们的世界经济在很大程度上依赖于霍尔木兹海峡的开放水域以及市场对此的反应。马伦说:“这个地区的旅游、经济和生计实际上现在已经完全停止了。"有太多的事情是我们无法预料的。"
由于大多数民主党人继续批评总统和他的政府，马伦说他仍然专注于当前。
“我认为关于我们是如何进来的，何时进来的，为什么进来的争论将会继续下去，”马伦说。“我现在更加关注我们已经进入的事实，以及我们如何才能取得好的结果。”
Former Joint Chiefs Chair Mullen says regime change is a 'very difficult undertaking'
Retired Adm. Mike Mullen, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday that he has doubts that the U.S. can successfully pull off regime change in Iran.
“Our track record in Iraq, where we actually chose the leader, in Afghanistan, where we chose the leader was pretty bad. So, it's a very, very difficult undertaking,” Mullen told "This Week" co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
Mullen served as chair of the Joint Chiefs under Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, while the U.S. was fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
President Donald Trump in recent days has raised the possibility of regime change in Iran. Trump said the U.S. should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader.
Trump has demanded “unconditional surrender” from the Iranians, but Mullen said that he does not expect that they will lay down their arms, even as their supreme leader and several top officials were killed.
“The supreme leader is dead, but I don't think the regime change that we're talking about is represented just by that,” Mullen said. "They're going to sacrifice everything they've got in order to make sure that they can survive.”
The war with Iran entered its ninth day Sunday, and Iran’s retaliation is increasingly widespread across the region. Mullen said he worries the conflict could spread in unpredictable ways.
“Wars expand, objectives change, circumstances come up that you didn't expect,” Mullen said. “And I worry this has already become a wide, regional war.”
The consequences of the war have also begun to extend beyond the Middle East. As of Sunday morning, AAA shows gas prices have risen $0.47 since the first attacks Feb. 28, the result of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial passage for the world’s oil supply.
“We've got the economy of the world in great part depending on the open waters that the Straits of Hormuz and how markets react to this. You've got a tourism, economic, livelihood in the region that's actually completely stopped right now,” Mullen said. “There's an awful lot in play that we can't anticipate.”
And as most Democrats continue to criticize the president and his administration, Mullen said he remains focused on the present.
“I think the debate about how we got in, when we got in, why we got in will continue,” Mullen said. “I'm much more focused now on the fact that we're in and how can we make it come out well.”
