Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Tuesday the prospect of war with the U.S. doesn’t faze it, and claimed American military might is static — the latest tough talk from Tehran amid heightened Middle East tensions and ongoing disputes with Washington.
“The enemy is not more powerful than before,” the Guard’s spokesman, Gen. Ramazan Sharif, told a press conference in Tehran. He added Iran doesn’t “support engaging in any war” while at the same time it doesn’t “fear the occurrence of a war.”
“We have enough readiness to defend the country,” Sharif said, adding that Iran has boosted its military power over the past 30 years.
Iran’s claim that it fears nothing from American forces is not new.
As Breitbart News reported, the U.S. military presence in the Middle East was dismissed Sunday as its “weakest in history” by a deputy Guards commander.
The semi-official news agency Fars quoted Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi as making the accusation but failed to add any evidence to back his claim.
“The Americans have been present in the region since 1833 and they are now at their weakest in history in West Asia,” he is alleged to have said.
Tehran has previously described U.S. moves in the Middle East as “psychological warfare” and a “political game”designed to hurt the Iran people.
The White House announced two weeks ago it would send the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the Persian Gulf to counter Tehran. The Lincoln is now on its way to its new assignment, as Breitbart News reported.
The USS Abraham Lincoln is a Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Commissioned in 1989, it has berthing to carry over 6,000 officers and enlisted sailors. At 332 meters (1,092 feet), it is nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall.
The carrier has a 4.5-acre flight deck that carries F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, MH-60 Seahawk helicopters and other aircraft.
Despite the accumulation of American forces, a senior Guards commander earlier this month said the U.S. and its regional supporters will not attack Iran because of its “spirit of resistance.”
“If the criminal America and its Western and regional allies don’t dare carry out a face-to-face military attack against our country it is because of the spirit of resistance and sacrifice of the people and youth,” Major General Gholamali Rashid was reported as warning.
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