General: Iran will retaliate if Israel attacks

Iran has periodically issued warnings over the possibility of war.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — 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.

Within range

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.

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.”