The United States would not be safe from retaliation if Iran is attacked by Washington, the Iran newspaper quoted a senior Revolutionary Guards commander on Tuesday as saying.
“In the face of any attack, we will have a crushing response. In that case, we will not only act in the boundaries of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, no place in America will be safe from our attacks,” Massoud Jazayeri was quoted as saying by the daily.
Iran would not strike any country first, he said.
Tehran is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear program.
Israel and the United States have threatened military action against Iran unless it abandons activities which the West suspects are intended to develop nuclear weapons.
Further talks between Iran and world powers are expected to take place this month in an attempt to reach a compromise.
The most recent talks failed in January 2011 after Iran refused to suspend its sensitive uranium enrichment work, as demanded by several U.N. resolutions.
REUTERS/IRIB Iranian TV
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad watches from a control room as nuclear fuel rods are loaded into the Tehran Research Reactor in Tehran in February. Ahmadinejad insists the nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Tehran says its nuclear work is peaceful and it has the right to develop its program under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“America, the Zionists and reactionary Arabs should pay attention that we will seriously confront them wherever the Islamic Republic’s interests are threatened,” Jazayeri said, according to Iran daily.
Iranian officials have warned that the Islamic Republic’s response to any military strike would be painful and has said it could close the oil shipping thoroughfare the Strait of Hormuz.
AFP PHOTO/GALI TIBBON
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference marking the start of his fourth year in power on Tuesday in Jerusalem. "The Iranian government ... is having economic troubles but it has yet to move backward, even a millimeter, in its nuclear program," Netanyahu said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that international sanctions were hurting Iran’s economy but not enough to persuade it to curb its nuclear ambitions even slightly.
“The Iranian government … is having economic troubles but it has yet to move backward, even a millimeter, in its nuclear program,” Netanyahu told a news conference he called to mark his right-wing government’s third anniversary in power.
“Will these difficulties bring the government in Tehran to stop its nuclear program? Time will tell. I cannot say to you that this will happen. I know there are difficulties, but there has yet to be a change.”
‘I hope we will be able to do this together with the leading players in the international community’
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to press ahead with tough sanctions on Tehran, saying there was sufficient oil supply in the world market to allow countries to cut Iranian imports.
In his own remarks, Netanyahu shed no new light on how Israel might deal with what he has said is Iran’s intention to build atomic weapons that could threaten the existence of the Jewish state.
Both Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, and its main ally, the United States, have held out the prospect of military action against Iran if sanctions do not work. Iran has said it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.
Returning to a familiar theme in Israel’s discourse on Iran, Netanyahu contrasted the helplessness of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust to the military strength and diplomatic influence of the Jewish state founded after World War Two.
“The Jewish people did not have these capabilities seventy, eighty ears ago. We did not have these tools. Today these tools exist, and it is our duty to use them in order to thwart the nefarious intentions of our enemies,” he said, without referring directly to Iran.
A rash of public comments two months ago by Israeli officials suggesting time was running out for Israel to mount any effective military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, some of which have been moved underground, stoked international concern.
But more recently, Israel has cautiously welcomed the planned resumption later this month of big-power nuclear talks with Iran.
“I will do all I can to fend off this danger,” Netanyahu said in reference to Iran’s nuclear program, “I hope we will be able to do this together with the leading players in the international community, it is a great danger to them, but first and foremost it is a danger to us.”
National Post
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