Iran Threatens US With ‘Crushing’ Retaliation – OpEd

An Iranian military commander warned the United States on Saturday that Iran will retaliate if the United States attacks it, according to a report by the official Iranian Republic News Agency.

“The U.S. dares not attack Iran because in case (sic) it does so it will face a crushing response and be bitterly punished,” said Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commanding officer of the aerospace division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corp (IRGC).

The general made his threat the day after Iran started the initial stage of an aerial war game in the eastern part of the Islamic country.

The current military exercise is focusing on Iran’s offensive tactics, the public relations office of the Khatam al-Anbia Air Defense Base said in a press statement.

Domestically manufactured missile, radar and defense systems will be tested during the military maneuvers, the news agency said without further elaboration.

“The United States undoubtedly failed in its attempts to refer Tehran’s nuclear case to the UNSC as Russia and China immediately objected the motion and the Non-Aligned Movement voiced its support for the Islamic Republic’s peaceful atomic activities,” said Mohammad Karami-Rad, a member of Iran’s Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission.

Karami-Rad made his remarks after the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted Friday a resolution on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

“The United States must realize that it cannot isolate Iran by issuing numerous resolutions,” the Iranian lawmaker was quoted as saying.

Iranian officials also said Saturday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolution adopted a day earlier will not stop the country’s nuclear program.

Last week, the Law Enforcement Examiner reported that the top leader of the terrorist group Hezbollah warned the United States government that interference in the internal affairs of Iran or any attack by the U.S. military attack, would result in violence throughout the Middle East.
During his annual televised speech to celebrate Hezbollah’s “Martyr’s Day,” the group’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah cautioned the U.S. saying, “The U.S. should understand that a war against Iran and Syria will not remain in the Iranian and Syrian territories, but it will engulf the whole region.”

Hezbollah’s leader claimed the U.S. is “attempting to compensate for losses in the region as a result of the continued unrest in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia” and the Iraqi government’s decision to have the U.S. withdraw completely in December.

“These changes in the region are not in the interests of the United States, and as a result, the resistance is gaining momentum, ” he said.