By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 19, 7:07 PM ET


TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has drawn up plans to bomb Israel if the Jewish state should attack, the deputy air force commander said Wednesday, adding to tensions already heated up by an Israeli airstrike on Syria and Western calls for more U.N. sanctions against Tehran.

Other Iranian officials also underlined their country's readiness to fight if the U.S. or Israel attacks, a reflection of concerns in Tehran that demands by the U.S. and its allies for Iran to curtail its nuclear program could escalate into military action.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Sunday that the international community should prepare for the possibility of war in the event Iran obtains atomic weapons, although he later stressed the focus is still on diplomatic pressures.

The comments come as the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon, is touring Persian Gulf countries seeking to form a united front of Arab allies against Iran's growing influence in the region.

Iran has periodically raised alarms over the possibility of war, particularly when the West brings up talk of sanctions over Tehran's rejection of a U.N. Security Council demand that it halt uranium enrichment.

"We have drawn up a plan to strike back at Israel with our bombers if this regime (Israel) makes a silly mistake," Iran's deputy air force commander, Gen. Mohammad Alavi, said in an interview with the semiofficial Fars news agency.

Alavi warned that Israel is within range of Iran's medium-range missiles and fighter-bombers.

The Iranian air force had no immediate comment on the Fars report. But Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammed Najjar told the official IRNA news agency that "we keep various options open to respond to threats. ... We will make use of them if required."

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards also weighed in, saying Iran "has prepared its people for a possible confrontation against any aggression."

White House press secretary Dana Perino said Alavi's comment "is not constructive and it almost seems provocative."

"Israel doesn't seek a war with its neighbors. And we all are seeking, under the U.N. Security Council resolutions, for Iran to comply with its obligations" under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, she said.

During a stop in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington is committed to diplomacy, but added that the U.S. hasn't taken any military "options off the table." She said that "it can't be business as usual" with Iran, a country whose president has spoken of wiping Israel off the map.

For diplomacy to work, she said, "it has to have both a way for Iran to pursue a peaceful resolution of this issue and it has to have teeth, and the U.N. Security Council and other measures are providing teeth."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said his government took Iran's "threat very seriously and so does the international community."

"Unfortunately we are all too accustomed to this kind of bellicose, extremist and hateful language coming from Iran," he said.

Israeli warplanes in 1981 destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor being built by Saddam Hussein's regime, and many in the region fear Israel or the U.S. could mount airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities if Tehran doesn't bow to Western demands to cease uranium enrichment.

Iran, which says it isn't trying to produce material for atomic bombs but rather fuel for reactors that would generate electricity, has said in the past that Israel would be the first retaliatory target for any attack. But Alavi's comments were the first to mention specific contingency plans.

David Ochmanek, an international policy analyst with the U.S.-based RAND Corporation, said Iran has the capability to attack Israel with a limited number of ballistic missiles, but Israel could potentially inflict greater damage on Iran.

"If Israelis attacked Iran it would be with high precision weapons that could destroy military targets," he said. "They could destroy Iran's nuclear reactor and do damage to the enrichment."

"The Iranian response would be quite different," Ochmanek said. "It would be small numbers of highly innaccurate missiles and the intention would be to do this for psychological purposes rather than to destroy discrete targets. It's an asymmetrical relationship."

A top Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander warned earlier this week that U.S. bases around Iran would also be legitimate targets.

"Today, the United States is within Iran's sight and all around our country, but it doesn't mean we have been encircled. They are encircled themselves and are within our range," Gen. Mohammed Hasan Kousehchi told IRNA.

U.S. forces are in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Persian Gulf, Kuwait hosts a major U.S. base, the U.S. 5th Fleet patrols from its base in Bahrain, and the U.S. Central Command is housed in Qatar.

Tensions have been raised by a mysterious Israeli air incursion over Syria on Sept. 6. Israel has placed a tight news blackout on the reported incident, while Syria has said little. U.S. officials said it involved an airstrike on a target.

One U.S. official said the attack hit weapons heading for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Syria and Iran, but there also has been speculation the Israelis hit a nascent nuclear facility or were studying routes for a possible future strike on Iran.

Former Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday he was involved "from the beginning" in the alleged airstrike, the first public mention by an Israeli leader about the incident. Netanyahu, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, did not give further details.

Edward Djerejian, founding director of Rice University's Baker Institute, said the accusation that Israel had violated Syrian airspace, and possibly launched an attack on Syrian territory, was putting new concerns on an already tense situation.

"The region is very nervous," said Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Syria.

With Iran adding to the talk of military options, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called Wednesday for U.N. Security Council members and U.S. allies to help push for a third round of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

But Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said Moscow opposes new sanctions, adding they could hurt a recent agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency aimed at resolving questions about the Iranian program.

Two U.N. resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran have failed to persuade the country to suspend uranium enrichment.

Burns said he would host a Friday meeting of the Security Council's permanent members — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France. Talks on a new resolution are also expected next week in New York, when world leaders attend the annual ministerial session of the U.N. General Assembly.

In my HONEST OPINION let them bomb each other..blow each other up and then americans can come home and be DONE with this HOLY WAR of THEIRS.

I agree Barbie. It seems like every country wants to war it out with another, and they all go up to the line but never cross it. Just let them take each other off the map and then we wouldn't have to worry about much anymore.

When you see Iran and Russia move against Israel, get ready for the most awesome display of God's power since the exodus.

When you see the Chinese move against the West, you wanna pray to whoever you take comfort in.

That will be a "holy sh1t!" day

Belushi,

That's one possiblity. One thing that worries me about Revelations is that there is no mention of the US. This sort of conflict would draw in the US, unless something had already happened to prevent that. Either the US will be another arm of the anti-Christ's army or we will be crippled from the rapture or we will be otherwise incapacitated and unable to be involved in the Middle East.

As a small guide, the "parting of the Red Sea" trick was actually caused by the volcanic eruption of Santorini in Greece 3500 years ago.

The resulting hole caused a huge "suck in" of surrounding water and this emptied the Red Sea for a while until the tidal wave (300m high travelling at 150mph) wiped out Crete, and went on to flood the low plains of Alexandria in northern Egypt.

That was 3500 years ago.

3500 years from now I can see some cleric declaring that the tsunami that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in SE Asia was caused by his god to protect some other mutha!

The point is that what is actual "today" might be the fabrication of "tomorrow"

I think that the US was mentioned in the Bible
Check in the Appendix ...
It came under "S" and "G"

For what it is worth,

Ironically, the cold war period was one of the safest period in recent history.

The 2 seemingly equal strenghts superpowers of the time, kept each other honest, and in spite of postering scare tactics, the world was a much safer place against serious man-made cataclysms.

Today the greatest threath to world unrest, is that there is no equilibrium to keep the US honest. And please, spare us the 'US is fair and just' rethoric, and keeps itself honest without help from anyone else.

This delusion of the US, King of the World, with the Middle-East as its sandbox, is the most explosive cocktail facing the world today IMO.

Take the delusion and illegitimate aggressions out of th equation out, and the equilibrium is restored.

One way or the other, the US wisens up being preferable, the world's equilibrium will be restored one way or another.

Anyone refuting that, should seriously consider a 'History of fallen empires' concentrate urgently!

Restore the world equilibrium like Pol Pot restored the equalibrium to Cambodia? Things did balance out there all right only thing is 3 million people got murdered in the process. Most of them the educated intellectual types.

hey barbiesbigsister, you better check your writing and your facts before you open your blond mouth. you are the epidamy of a blond.