At the same time, Iran, fearing American firepower, is trying to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel by suggesting that, if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities and the U.S. stays out of it, Washington need not fear Iranian retaliation. Israel and the U.S. are already at odds about attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, with President Obama demanding that sanctions be given time and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that time is running out.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who recently praised Obama’s statement that America is looking for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, has in effect for the first time provided a way out for Obama in case of a conflict with Israel while at the same time warning about the consequences if the U.S. also attacks.
A Fars News Agency analysis said Saturday that if the U.S. is drawn in militarily, Iran will counterattack against U.S. bases in the region and interests worldwide. Fars News Agency, a media outlet of the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, has the imprimatur of the Iranian government.
The analysis, titled “The Secret War Against Iran’s Nuclear Program Will No Longer Be Unanswered,” quotes the Islamic regime’s supreme leader, Khamenei, who said in his Iranian New Year message last week that while Iran does not want a nuclear bomb, any attack on Iranian nuclear sites will spark the same level of force against the attacking country.
That statement is in line with what Iran’s defense minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said recently — that Iran has “secret weapons yet unknown to the West that will be used in response to any attack on Iran.” Vahidi is on Interpol’s most-wanted list for the Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people and injured hundreds more.
The Fars analysis said that Khamenei’s statement unveils “a new strategy” by the Islamic regime and its role in the region and the world. The first step in this strategy, the analysis said, is to close the Strait of Hormuz if Iran is attacked, a threat already made by various Iranian leaders. This in effect has already “imbalanced the West with its red lines on Iran,” the analysis said, and has even “forced American warships to move in groups along with other nations’ vessels in the Persian Gulf.”
In the second step, in response to the oil embargo by the European Union, Iran stopped all oil exports to England and France and “subjected the export of oil to other countries to long-term binding contracts,” the analysis said.
One aspect of the West’s confrontation with Iran is its secret war on Iran’s nuclear activities. “The assassination of four Iranian nuclear scientists with the help of (the Israeli intelligence agency) Mossad and the stuxnet virus were the beginnings of this covert war, and though the Americans, in fear of retaliation, blamed Israel for such activities, there is no doubt that the U.S. and Israel have closely collaborated in a covert war against Iran,” the analysis said.
The analysis warned that America and Israel should be clear on the fact that any attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will be responded to with the same level of force used against Iran, be it a computer virus, assassination or military attack, and will be far more devastating than recent terror attacks on Israeli interests in India and Bangkok.