Iran warns against foreign military attack

Iranian officials on Tuesday warned against any military raid on the country by some western countries over its sensitive nuclear program. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here Tuesday that any U.S. military attack on the country will bring regretful consequences for the attackers. Ahmadinejad said if the United States stands against the Islamic Republic, the response of the Iranian nation will make it regret what it did, local Mehr news agency reported. He criticized the U.S. government for making allegations against Tehran over its nuclear program, saying that "today, the U. S. government is audaciously accusing Iran of developing nuclear weapons while itself possesses 5,000 atomic bombs." The annual budget that Iran has allocated to nuclear research is about 250 million U.S. dollars while "U.S. President (Barack Obama) this year allocated 81 billion U.S. dollars to modernize the country's atomic bombs in addition to national budget," he said according to the report. Ahmadinejad also said that "the Iranian nation need not have atomic bombs to cut the hands of the United States off." He called on Washington to abandon its hostile policy toward Tehran. Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said Tuesday that military adventurism or any act of aggression against the Islamic Republic will be met with a swift and crushing response, according to the local satellite Press TV. Vahidi said at a ceremony attended by the police forces in Tehran that Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and army monitor every activity of the trans-regional forces in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. "Adventurism and any hostile measure against Iran's territorial integrity will be met with a decisive, swift and crushing response from the country's armed forces," he was quoted as saying. Vahidi pointed to the U.S. efforts to "demonize" Iran and convince neighboring countries that Iran is a threat to their security, and said that Washington aims to take control of the Islamic Awakening movement, sell its weapons and divert attention away from its ominous plans. Iran's Majlis (parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said here Tuesday that the western governments' policy toward Iran amounts to psychological warfare, the official IRNA news agency reported. Despite Tehran's repeated insistence on the "peaceful" nature of its nuclear program, the western countries continue to raise concerns that it will use the uranium enrichment to make nuclear weapons. Recent tensions between Iran and the West over the sensitive issue have raised concerns that the United States and Israel may consider a military strike on Iran's nuclear sites. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that any military strike against Iran would be a serious mistake. Commenting on an Israeli warning that a military operation against Tehran was becoming more likely, Lavrov said such action would be fraught with unpredictable consequences. The only way to solve Iran's nuclear problem was to resume talks between Iran and the six world powers, including the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, he said. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday dismissed recent media reports that his government was gearing to approve a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites, saying that a decision to that end has not yet been reached. The Ha'aretz daily reported last week that Barak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were lobbying cabinet ministers in an effort to secure a majority for an attack on Iran, despite assessments that an Iranian response could potentially wreak havoc on Israel. Dismissing the report as "baseless," Barak said that the public discourse on the issue has "brought about an unfounded and superfluous (media) campaign of intimidation."