Two high-ranking members of the Iranian military made threats against the United States in public statements Sunday, with one saying that the conflict between the Islamic Republic and the U.S. “will never end.”
“The raison d’etre of our quarrel with [the United States] is a quarrel between the right and wrong in nature, hence, this conflict will never end,” Ali Fadavi, the admiral of the the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, told Fars News. Fadavi added that although U.S.-Iran hostilities would continue in perpetuity, it would not be the United States who will instigate future issues, since “Today the Islamic Republic enjoys such a power and capabilities that the enemy cannot even think of confronting Iran.” Fadavi has issued increasingly bellicose rhetoric against the United States over the past year, repeatedly threatening to attack U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf. Sources in the Pentagon told the Washington Free Beacon last month that Iranian warships confront U.S. Navy vessels on a “nearly daily basis.”
Fadavi’s Air Force counterpart, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said in a speech on Sunday that “all U.S. military bases in the Middle East are within the range of” its ballistic missiles. Fars News reported:
“Some of the threats by the US are aimed at appeasing the Zionists, while others are for the purpose of domestic consumption (in the US), but what is important is that they are aware of and acknowledge our capabilities and deterrence power; we do not feel any need to increase the range of our missiles and (our perceived enemy) targets are fully within the range of our missiles,” Brigadier General Hajizadeh said, addressing a group of professors of Iran’s Science and Technology University in Tehran on Sunday.
Hajizadeh added that Iran will not slow down developing ballistic missiles and did not recognize the UN Security Council resolution that bans Iran from doing so. “We do not see any restriction for our missiles and the IRGC’s preparedness and missile drills are conducted without a halt and according to our annual time-table, but only some of them are publicized through the media,” Hajizadeh said.
[Photo: Fars News]