Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Israel and the US against launching a war on Iran saying the Islamic Republic’s response to any strike will be “regrettable.”
“They wish to do it, they want to do it, but they know about our power. They know that we are going to give them a decisive response,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Russia Today on Saturday.
“We have a saying in our language: If someone throws a smaller stone (at you), you should respond with a bigger stone. We will defend ourselves within our capabilities,” he added.
However, Ahmadinejad expressed “hope” that such a day will never come as there is no reason for any strike against Iran.
He claimed that Israel was founded for the purpose of making threats and aggression and securing the interests of the West.
Amid a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, both Tel Aviv and Washington have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the “option” of a military strike, based on strong western suspicions Iran’s nuclear program harbors a covert military agenda. Iran says its nuclear program is completely peaceful and within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory.
The International Atomic Energy Association, the world body’s nuclear watchdog, says Iran has obstructed efforts to inspect facilities under the NPT and has sought nuclear technology that has only military applications.
Iranian officials have warned that any act of aggression by the US and Israel against Iran would be firmly responded to and could result in a war that would spread beyond the Middle East.
In June, former head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency Meir Dagan warned that any attack on Tehran by Tel Aviv would result in a “regional war.”
“It is important to know what the outcome of an attack on Iran would be, what would happen on the day after and what situation Israel would find itself in on the international stage,” he said.
A website affiliated with the Guards published a report fantasizing about ‘the day after’ a successful Iranian nuclear bomb test shortly thereafter.
