Iranian commanders: ‘Israel-Iran war will eventually happen and it will speed up Israel’s annihilation’

September 22, 2012 – MIDDLE EAST – As Sacred Defense Week kicks off in Iran, senior military commander Jafari says Israeli threats “only prove their enmity with Islam and the revolution is serious, and eventually this enmity will lead to physical conflict.” Iranian military commanders continued to issue warnings and threats to Israel on the second day of Iranian Sacred Defense Week. An Israeli war on Iran “will eventually happen” but the Jewish state will subsequently be destroyed, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said in comments published Saturday in Iranian media. Sacred Defense Week is an annual commemoration of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, held on the anniversary of the beginning of the war. “A war will occur, but it’s not clear where or when it will be,” Jafari was quoted as saying. “Israel seeks war with us, but it’s not clear when the war will occur.” Right now they see war as the only method of confrontation,” he said. As speculation mounts that Israel could launch air strikes on Iran before US elections in November, Jafari told a news conference that the Jewish state would be destroyed if it took such a step. “Their threats only prove that their enmity with Islam and the revolution is serious, and eventually this enmity will lead to physical conflict,” Jafari said when asked about Israeli threats to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) reported. “We are making all efforts to increase our defensive capabilities so that if there is an attack … we could defend ourselves and other countries that need our help with high defensive capabilities,” he continued. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Army Brigadier General Abdul-Rahim Moussavi warned enemies, particularly Israel, that any aggression toward Iran would be met with a crushing response. “In case of an aggression, the enemy will face something that it has never expected,” Fars quoted him as saying. “After all, our enemies are soldiers, too, and know that we have not displayed everything we have,” he asserted, adding that Israeli aggression would “speed up its annihilation.” These comments came a day after Iranian commanders threatened the complete destruction of the State of Israel as the country unveiled a domestically manufactured air defense system as part of a military parade, various Iranian news agencies reported. “If the Zionist regime makes such a move, there will no longer be a thing called the Zionist regime,” Revolutionary Guards General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said, according to Iran’s Press TV. “The Zionist regime cannot even imagine our response to the military attack of this regime.” –Jerusalem Post

War now inevitable? The US Senate on Saturday passed by a 90-1 vote a non-binding resolution insisting that the United States prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and ruling out any strategy aimed at dealing with a nuclear-armed Iran. The only senator to vote against the resolution was Republican Rand Paul, a Tea Party and libertarian favorite, who argued that it was a de-facto declaration of war. –JP 

Israel’s nuclear chief says Israel can defend itself: Israel is not indifferent to “direct and blunt” Iranian threats to its existence and is “competent to deter its enemies and to defend itself,” Shaul Chorev, head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, said Wednesday. Chorev’s comments came at the annual meeting of the 155-nation International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, where he said that Iran’s sizable enrichment of uranium and construction of a heavy water research reactor for the military production of plutonium, as well as its design and testing of components of nuclear weapons and its activities to integrate a payload onto the Shahab 3 missile, left no doubt as to the goal of Tehran’s efforts. –JP