IND:  Interesting comments by a relatively hawkish member of the US armed forces.  Hope the Israeli leadership is listening.

A military strike on Iran could have the unintended consequence of stirring nationalist sentiment to the benefit of Tehran’s hard-line government, U.S. General David Petraeus told Reuters.

“It’s possible (a strike) could be used to play to nationalist tendencies,” Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Iran, said in an interview this week.

“There is certainly a history, in other countries, of fairly autocratic regimes almost creating incidents that inflame nationalist sentiment. So that could be among the many different, second, third, or even fourth order effects (of a strike).”

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program have set off speculation that Israel could make good on veiled threats to hit its arch-foe pre-emptively. But Israel’s envoy to Washington said in December the U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran has not reached the point of discussing the military option.

U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have warned that any strike on Iran would not stop the Islamic Republic from pursuing nuclear weapons. Instead, it would only delay Tehran, an opinion Petraeus said he shared.