“US presidential candidate keeps raving on Iran to sway US public opinion”

Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi says the saber-rattling of the US Republican presidential candidate against Iran is aimed at diverting the US public opinion from ‘the grave’ domestic issues.

“The economic issue is one of the [most] important factors in the American people’s decisions to vote, while none of the US presidential candidates, neither Democratic nor Republican, have presented a solution yet to break the economic stalemate they have reached,” Brig. Gen. Vahidi said Thursday.

He added that the United States is currently experiencing the “most difficult economic era” and emphasized that Washington suffered defeat in the international political scene such as its failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Instead of considering the real demands of Americans, the US statesmen have concentrated on the issues that have no values for the people, the Iranian minister pointed out.

Brig. Gen Vahidi’s remarks come on the heels of US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s recent remarks against Iran in which he reaffirmed his support for an Israeli military strike against the Islamic Republic, aimed at stopping its nuclear energy program.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Romney said, “We will employ every means short of military power. We recognize that if all means are exhausted and fail, a military option will have to be considered.”

The US presidential hopeful arrived in Israel on Saturday night on the second leg of a three-country tour that began in London.

The US and Israel have repeatedly threatened Tehran with a military strike to force it to halt its nuclear energy program, claimed by the duo to have been directed towards the acquisition of military nuclear capability.

Iran, however, has dismissed the allegation and the threats, pledging a crushing response to any attack on its soil.