If the United States takes an offensive action against Iran, it might well ignite World War III, because Russia and China cannot stand by and see the Islamic Republic attacked by the West, according to James Fetzer, a US academic and analyst.

Fetzer, a retired professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV while commenting on retired US General Wesley Clark's old prediction of an American invasion of Iran.

“When Wesley Clark warns that the United States is on the path to war with Iran, it must be taken seriously. It was he who upon his return from serving as commander of Allied Forces in Europe, to the Pentagon encountered a general who explained to him the United States was planning to attack Iraq, and who also informed him a month a later of the plan to take out seven governments in the next five years, beginning with Iraq and Libya, ending with Syria and Iran,” Fetzer said.

“What Wesley Clark is concerned about is that this intensified atmosphere with responses from Iran will create the opportunity for the Zionist-controlled foreign policy of Donald Trump… to take offensive action against Iran, it would be a catastrophe,” he added.

“It will initiate WW3. Russia will not stand by nor China to see Iran attacked by the West. But these monsters, who are so strongly controlled by Bibi Netanyahu and Likudists, who desire to bring about the destruction of Iran, are all too likely to take actions that are irrational, completely catastrophic in their consequences, without regard to the best interest of the world or even of their own states respectively,” the analyst stated.

“It’s a grave situation and I regret to say that Wesley Clark is too responsible a voice not to be heard,” he concluded.

A warning by Clark that Iran has been a target of US intentions issued more than a decade ago appeared this week to be moving closer to realization.

US President Donald Trump, in the anti-Iran remarks made at the UN General Assembly's General Debate and amplified as he chaired a meeting of the Security Council, seemed to confirm the claim made by the former chair of the Joint Chief' of Staff under President Bill Clinton that Iran was on a list of seven countries that Washington planned to invade and destroy.

The retired 4-star US Army general, Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia, said in the 2007 interview that the purpose of the 9/11 attack was to take out the governments of seven countries in five years. These seven countries were Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, and Iran. All of these countries have been directly or indirectly been the object of US aggression.

Last week, several gunmen launched a deadly terrorist attack on a military parade in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, bordering Iraq where the US has still thousands of troops deployed. Some independent observers have said that the well-coordinated attack was an indication that the United States has decided to accelerate asymmetric warfare against Iran, following Trump’s launching of an economic war against the Islamic Republic.