Iranian FM: Israel is no military match for Tehran
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Israel poses no military threat to Iran, adding that any aggression on Israel’s part would spark retaliation and accusing Israel of trying to sabotage relations between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The Zionist regime [Israel] is less than nothing to pose any kind of threat to Iran,” ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters Sunday when questioned about recent comments on Tehran’s nuclear program made by Israeli officials.
It was not clear what Israeli threat Hosseini was referring to, but his statement came as Iran continues to defy international demands that it suspends uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for a nuclear reactor or fissile material for a bomb. [complete article]
Editor’s Comment — I’ll hazard a guess about what Hosseini was referring to: the Israeli strike on Syria on September 6. Maybe this is the last Syria strike story — the one in which not even the word “Syria” appeared.
Iran is a natural non-Arab nation for Israel security in the Middle East region. Persians and Jews have common historical and cultural links. People of Israel know that below the surface of verbal bravado from the present President of Iran and Israel, these two nations have to survive the sea of hostile Arabs. Iraq invasion of Iran was a reality check for Israel.
The Iraqis army from 1983 to 1988 used mustard gas, tabun, sarin and possibly other chemical agents against the Iranians. Most notoriously, in 1988, Iraqi aircraft dropped sarin and mustard gas on Iraqi Kurdistan, killing up to 5,000 Iraqi Kurdish civilians.
CIA special adviser Charles A. Duelfer in a detailed 350,000-word document (October 2004) reported “During the early years, Egyptian scientists provided consultation, technology and oversight allowing rapid advances and technological leaps in weaponization”. The Egyptians supplied Iraq with 9-foot-long Grad rockets pre-equipped with plastic inserts in the warheads to hold the poisons. In 1983, the Egyptians modified the Iraqis’ Grad 122mm multiple-launch rocket system to enable warheads to carry chemical agents. That powerful weapon system can launch 40 rockets with a range of 12 miles.
Iraqi government paid Egypt $12 million for the service. Baghdad used nerve agents to kill thousands of Iranian soldiers and Iranian and Iraqi civilians.
These findings are not surprising considering the integrated financial, technical, and armaments that were provided by many Arab countries to support Arabic Iraq against non-Arab Iranians and Kurds. The war began when Iraq with full encouragement of the President Ronald Regan invaded Iran on September 22, 1980. This war resulted in a death of over 250,000 Iranians and permanent physical and mental injury of several million other Iranians and Kurds. The consequence of this war was devastation for both Iraqi and Iranian people.
Israel recognized that the same Arabic nations who supported Iraq against Iran will attack again Israel. Iran and Israel have a lot of common security interests. The United States’ and Israel’s common interests in the region does not support attacking Iran.