A high-ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has issued a warning, stating that his forces will destroy Arab Gulf oil fields in case the United States attacks Iran.
The deputy commander of the guards, Sardar Zolghadr, issued the statement during an interview with an Iranian television channel, according to press reports in Tehran on Saturday.
He stated that the oil fields in the region, which are the sources of energy for the United States, will be threatened, because in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran, the Islamic Republic will not limit its defensive actions to within Iranian borders only.
Recently, high-ranking Iranian leaders have been warning the U.S. superpower against taking any military action in Iran. Iranians have been extremely angered by U.S. President George W. Bush’s comments in his recent State of the Union address, that Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, was part of an "axis of evil" that supports terrorism.
With regards to the Tehran administration, Bush announced, “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom”.
This statement was in an apparent reference to Iran's alleged involvement in the Palestinian arms smuggling operation, which was blocked early January, after Israeli commandos seized the Karine A weapons ship.
On Friday, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who served as Iran's president for most of the second decade after the Islamic Revolution, warned Washington that the Iranian people would rise to defend their country against any military operation.
Rafsanjani, speaking to congregants at the weekly Muslim Friday prayers, stated Iran would turn into a "deep quagmire" for America.
"Iranians will not roll the red carpet for the U.S. If they do come, the only red that they will see will be the blood of the aggressors," Rafsanjani declared.
Rafsanjani's successor, Mohammad Khatami, has termed President Bush's comments an "insult to the Iranian people."
Earlier on Thursday, Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, said that Iran would initiate no attacks but warned that any attack on Iran would spark a "resolute" reaction that "will make the aggressors regret their action."
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders have called for a large anti-U.S. demonstration on Monday, the date which marks the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, to send a message to the United States that Iranians are positioned strongly behind their leaders in confronting any possible aggression whatsoever.
IRGC
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that the country should boost its defensive capability as the United States poses a threat to the country.
In a communiqué to mark the 23rd anniversary of triumph of the Islamic Revolution, the IRGC called on the different political groups and associations to close their ranks under leadership of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to display another heroic confrontation with the US.
The Iranian nation will not withhold any sacrifice to protect the Islamic Republic, the achievements of the dear martyrs who defended the country during eight years of US-backed Iraqi-imposed war (1980-1988). "The US statesmen have gone on extremes in villainy to the extent that even their own allies are opposing them," the IRGC said.
"In a world dominated by materialism and greed and where the United States is pursuing hegemony over the world, it goes without saying that the US was angry with Iran getting out of the circle of western colonialism and even opposing the world arrogance's conspiracy against the oppressed people of Palestine," the communiqué said.
"The world freedom loving people and intellectuals know that the Iranian people have the right to stand on their own independently so that the history will not forgive the United States for trampling upon the rights of the Iranian people by hatching various plots in the past two decades against Iran," the IRGC said.
"Since the early days of victory of the Islamic Revolution, the White House and the Zionist lobby have been involved in creating crises on Iran and now the world is witnessing that the war-monger world arrogance wants to impose another war on Iran and the other Islamic states," it concluded. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
