Commander underlines Iran’s crushing response to enemies

A senior Iranian commander cautioned enemies against a military strike on Iran, saying the Islamic Republic Armed Forces would give a tooth-breaking response to any enemy threat.

“The Islamic Republic has gained valuable experiences during the eight-year Iraqi imposed war on Iran. The war has turned Iran’s Army and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) into formidable military forces,” Deputy Head of the Joint Chief of Staff of Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said Saturday.

“The Islamic Republic’s primary focus is on establishing peace and justice, in adherence to Islamic principles,” he went on to say. “We hope for a world free from oppression and extremism.”

Israel and its close ally the United States have repeatedly warned of a military strike on Iran.

Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads, but they accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations.

Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Speculation that Israel could bomb Iran mounted since a big Israeli air drill last year. In the first week of June, 2008, 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters reportedly took part in an exercise over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece, which was interpreted as a dress rehearsal for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.

Iran has, in return, warned that it would target Israel and the US as well as their worldwide interests in case it comes under attack by either country.

Iran has also warned it could close the strategic Strait of Hormoz if it became the target of a military attack over its nuclear program.

Strait of Hormoz, the entrance to the strategic Persian Gulf waterway, is a major oil shipping route.

Meantime, a recent study by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a prestigious American think tank, has found that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities “is unlikely” to delay the country’s program.

The ISIS study also cautioned that an attack against Iran would backfire by compelling the country to acquire nuclear weaponry.

A recent study by a fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Caitlin Talmadge, warned that Iran could use mines as well as missiles to block the strait, and that “it could take many weeks, even months, to restore the full flow of commerce, and more time still for the oil markets to be convinced that stability had returned.”