{Iran ramped up its rhetoric against the United States over the weekend even as Western powers began easing sanctions on the Islamic Republic, saying that the country would \u201crecognize no boundary for its response\u201d if America exercised its military option.}<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US military option is of no care to us,\u201d said Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps deputy commander Hossein Salami in a televised interview Saturday night, according to the semi-official Iranian Fars news agency. \u201cThey can use this option but should take the responsibility for its destructive consequences too.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe US can have different scenarios against Iran, including air, missile and limited ground incursion,\u201d Salami added. \u201cAll these scenarios have been identified, all possibilities have been studied and we have complete intelligence superiority in all these cases and operational strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salami was apparently responding to a January 23rd Al Arabiya interview, in which US Secretary of State John Kerry said that if Iran continues enrichment of uranium beyond permitted levels or breaks out toward a nuclear weapons capability, \u201cthen the military option that is available to the United States is ready and prepared to do what it would have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly after Salami\u2019s interview, Defense Minister Hossein Dehgan adopted a similar tone during a ceremony marking the return from exile of Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini, Fars reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world\u2019s arrogant powers are today scared of Iran\u2019s high defensive capabilities and for the same reason their style of sanctions and threats are changed everyday,\u201d said Dehgan.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time senior Iranian defense officials derided the US military threat. Last week, IRGC Navy Commander Ali Fadavi joined the criticism, saying, \u201cThe military option is a laughable subject. Even John Kerry\u2019s children snicker at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the rhetoric coming from Tehran\u2019s defense establishment, Iran and the P5+1 are scheduled to hold a new round of talks in Vienna on February 18 in a bid to discuss a comprehensive solution to Tehran\u2019s contested nuclear program.<\/p>\n
Iran signed the interim deal in November with the P5+1 group \u2014 Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany \u2014 and began implementing the agreement on January 20.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, which is to last six months, Iran committed to limit its uranium enrichment to five percent, halting production of 20 percent-enriched uranium.<\/p>\n
In return, the European Union and the United States have eased crippling economic sanctions on Iran.<\/p>\n
The Times of Israel <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Iran ramped up its rhetoric against the United States over the weekend even as Western powers began easing sanctions on the Islamic Republic, saying that the country would \u201crecognize no boundary for its response\u201d if America exercised its military option.} \u201cThe US military option is of no care to us,\u201d said Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000050117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-12296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000050117,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton12296.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000050117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12296"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=12296"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=12296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}