US politician urges Iran ‘sabotage’

Former house speaker says “covert operations” should be used to replace government.

south pars oil field — Gingrich says the US should target Iran's oil and gas infrastructure to topple the government [EPA file]

In depth

Newt Gingrich speaks to Al Jazeera on Iran

While Barack Obama, the US president, has attempted diplomatic engagement with Iran following years of icy relations, some of his administration’s critics have been calling for destabilisation instead.

But Gingrich qualified that such a tactic to destabilise would only be “one piece out of many”.

“I think that the Reagan strategy in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s is the right strategy: we use economic, diplomatic, psychological pressures to try to change the regime.”