US at risk of 'sliding into war' with Iran

WASHINGTON - The United States appears headed on a collision course with Iran that could lead to a war with "disastrous" consequences, a former adviser to ex-president Jimmy Carter warned.

"We think we are going to avoid war by moving toward compulsion," Zbignew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to Carter in the late 1970s, told an audience at an Atlantic Council think tank event in Washington late on Tuesday.

"But the more you lean toward compulsion, the more the choice becomes war if it doesn't work. That narrows our options in a very dramatic way," said the former official, who remains an influential voice on US foreign policy.