Iran commander warns Israel, US against attack

TEHRAN (AP) — Sept. 16, 2012 - The top com­man­der in Iran’s pow­er­ful Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard warned Sun­day that his country’s mis­siles will ensure “noth­ing will remain” of Israel if it takes mil­i­tary action against Tehran over its con­tro­ver­sial nuclear program.

Gen. Moham­mad Ali Jafari also warned that Iran might close the Straits of Hor­muz if it is attacked, with­draw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and hit U.S. bases in the Mid­dle East.

Such warn­ings and ref­er­ences to Israel’s destruc­tion have been made before by Iran­ian offi­cials. But Gen. Jafari’s com­ments to a Tehran news con­fer­ence were an unusu­ally detailed, strongly worded and com­pre­hen­sive list­ing of the means that Iran says it has to retal­i­ate against a strike on its nuclear facilities.

The U.S. and Israel have left open the pos­si­bil­ity of such a strike if Iran does not back down from what they say are a push to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear pro­gram is for peace­ful purposes.

“Our response to Israel is clear: I think noth­ing will remain of Israel (should it attack Iran). Given Israel’s small land area and its vul­ner­a­bil­ity to a mas­sive vol­ume of Iran’s mis­siles, I don’t think any spot in Israel will remain safe,” he said.

He said Iran’s response to any attack will begin near the Israeli bor­der. The Islamic Repub­lic has close ties with mil­i­tants in Gaza and Lebanon, both of whom have rocket arse­nals that could be used for cross-border strikes.

He said he did not believe how­ever that Israel would attack on its own. Should the U.S. launch a strike, Jafari sug­gested that Iran could respond with mis­sile salvos at U.S. bases in the Gulf.

“The US mil­i­tary bases sprawled around Iran are con­sid­ered a big vul­ner­a­bil­ity. Even the mis­sile shields that they have set up, based on infor­ma­tion we have, could only work for a few mis­siles but when exposed to a mas­sive vol­ume of mis­siles, the shields will lose their effi­ciency and will not work,” he said.

He also said that Iran warned that oil ship­ments through the strate­gic Strait of Hor­muz will be in jeop­ardy if a war breaks out between Iran and the United States. Iran­ian offi­cials have pre­vi­ously threat­ened to close the water­way, the route for a fifth of the world’s oil, but less fre­quently in recent months.

“If a war breaks out where one side is Iran and the other side is the West and U.S., it’s nat­ural that a prob­lem should occur in the Strait of Hor­muz. Export of energy will be harmed. It’s nat­ural that this will hap­pen,” he said.

Gen. Jafari said that, if attacked, Iran will no longer be com­mit­ted to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under whose terms U.N. inspec­tors visit Iran­ian nuclear sites. He said how­ever that this does not mean that Iran would build a nuclear weapon.

“If the world and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions fail to pre­vent such an attack, it’s nat­ural that Iran’s com­mit­ments (to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty) would nat­u­rally change and the sit­u­a­tion would be dif­fer­ent from the past. These are the risks and con­se­quences that such an attack will bring about, and these mat­ters would be a deterrent.”

Jafari’s com­ments come as U.S.-led naval forces from the West and Arab allies gather for naval maneu­vers in the Per­sian Gulf that include mine-sweeping exercises.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Sep 16 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.