Iran could hit back with missiles if Israel attacked it and could also rely on allies in the region to strike, the commander of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday. Israel, like the United States, has not ruled out military action against Iran if diplomacy fails to resolve a row over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The West and Israel accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, despite Iran's insistence that it wants technology to make electricity so that it can save more of its vast oil and gas resources for export.
"Our strategic calculations show that if the Zionist regime wants to make the smallest move against our interests, either independently or with America, in the shortest time all the territories under the Zionist regime's control will become unsafe," Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari said.
"That country is completely in the range of the Islamic Republic's missiles. The missile capabilities of our armed forces is such that the Zionist regime, with all its capabilities, would not be able to confront it," he added.
Jafari was quoted by Iran's Mehr News Agency.