Iran again grabs the opportunity to play the role of the little streetpunk in need of a good smackdown.
An Iranian vice president said he did not believe that the US would attack his country over its nuclear programme and compared defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to a vampire showing its teeth.
“Iran is not Iraq, Iran is not Afghanistan,” Isfandiar Rahim Mashaee said during a visit to the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
“They still cannot leave (those two countries), it is impossible for them to invade Iran.”
The United Nations nuclear watchdog voted last week to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme – raising the stakes in the dispute over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear ambitions.
The US and Europe suspect Iran is secretly developing bombs, but Iran insists the programme is for energy.
The US has denied it has any plans to invade the country, but Rumsfeld reportedly agreed with a German interviewer recently that all options, including a military response, were on the table.
Asked about that report, Mashaee said Rumsfeld was like “Dracula showing his teeth”.
Actually, yeah, I can kind of see the Dracula in Rummy. Then again, I kind of like that in a Secretary of Defense. It’s not the nature of the position to be the good cop in the greater scheme of things.