Billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel has voiced strong scepticism about the US war on Iran, saying Washington should never have launched the conflict, Anadolu reports citing Politico.

“I’m sceptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it,” Thiel has said at a private event on Oct 12, according to audio obtained by Politico. “There were a lot of mistakes that were made.”

Thiel, a major Republican donor and longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, also questioned whether the US had the means to sustain its position in the conflict.

“Maybe we don’t have the hard power. Maybe we’re going to lose the soft power war,” he says.

In the lecture, part of a series held in Nashville, Thiel has also reportedly expressed opposition to neoconservative foreign policy and US military intervention in the Middle East. His comments reportedly suggest concern that the war could have consequences beyond the battlefield, particularly for Washington’s international standing.