Iran antidote to US venomous influence in Mideast: Analyst

The US has been overwhelmed over the fact that Iran’s growing might in the Middle East has emerged as a bulwark against Washington’s hegemonic policies in the region, a top political analyst says.

“What strikes fear into the heart of Washington is in fact the ever-increasing sway the Islamic Republic is gaining and that which can be used as a leverage to counter the influence of the United States and Israel in the region,” senior Iranian author and the Middle East columnist Dr. Ismail Salami wrote in a Thursday article at Press TV website.

“In other words, Iran serves as an antidote to Washington’s venomous influence in the Middle East,” he added.

Salami alluded to the last week’s keynote speech by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the annual US-Israeli forum in which she desperately described Iran as “the hardest of the hard boards” and “an issue that has consumed a significant part of my time as secretary of state.”

The analyst described Clinton’s remarks as Washington’s confession of failure to bring the “politically powerful Iran” to a standstill and noted that Clinton’s allegations against Iran’s nuclear energy program are “just the child of her brain.”

The article also questioned Clinton’s canard of US efforts to engage in dialogue with Iran and argued that such claims are nonsensical against the backdrop of Washington’s “literature of force” against Tehran.

The analyst pointed to the escalation of the US espionage operations against Iran and its intensified campaign of embargoes against the Iranian population as some examples of US antagonistic strategies.

In a Tuesday announcement, Iran Navy Commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said Iranian forces had “hunted down” the ScanEagle over the Persian Gulf after it violated Iranian airspace and had forced it to land electronically.

The announcement came on top of a report by The Wall Street Journal saying that US intelligence agencies have stepped up spying operations on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor mostly by American unmanned drones operating over the Persian Gulf.

According to Iran’s Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, the US violated the Iranian airspace eight times in October.

“Aye, Mrs. Clinton, Iran is your hardest case and can be your worst nightmare as long as you keep imposing your brutal sanctions on the Iranian population and keep refraining from engaging in a meaningful dialogue with the Islamic Republic,” the article concluded.