Relations are simmering between Iran and the U.S.
Iran has acquired a strong military capability and will deter any attacks against it, Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said.
Shamkhani, speaking on Monday at a technology conference, said Iran did not fear the United States, which has already toppled the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan and dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq, both Iran’s enemies.
The defiant comments came the same day that US President George Bush said he would not rule out military action against Iran over its nuclear program.
“We can say we have developed a might that no country can attack us because they do not have accurate information about our military capabilities,” Shamkhani said in the speech, which was made available on Tuesday by the Defence Ministry.
“We have produced equipment at a rapid pace with the minimum investment that has resulted in the greatest deterrent force,” the ministry statement quoted Shamkhani as saying.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Seymour Hersh reported in Monday’s edition of The New Yorker magazine that Bush and his national security advisers had been “conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer” for the purpose of gathering intelligence and targeting information.
US Defence Department officials strongly criticised Hersh’s report.
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The toppling of Saddam in neighbouring Iraq has worried many Iranians about the possibility that Iran would be next in America’s list. Bush has accused Iran of being part of an “axis of evil” with North Korea and prewar Iraq.
The United States has accused Iran of seeking a covert nuclear weapons program. Iran has denied the charge, saying its nuclear program is geared only toward generating electricity, not producing bombs.
Hersh, who broke the story about the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture scandal in Iraq, wrote that he had repeatedly been told by intelligence and military officials, on condition of anonymity that “the next strategic target was Iran.”
Bush administration officials however, rejected the report, saying it was inaccurate.
European Union officials said on Tuesday they would oppose a military option against Iran. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU presidency, said they hoped to persuade Bush during a summit later this month that the only way to solve a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program was through diplomatic means.
Shamkhani stopped short of predicting the mother of all battles.