TEHRAN - Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Hossein Salami said on Wednesday that the enemy no longer thinks of military confrontation with Iran, underlining that the enemy has focused on undermining the Islamic establishment’s morale instead.

“Military war has been excluded from the enemy’s options,” Salami told reporters on Wednesday, adding that, “It has targeted the inspiring spirit of our establishment, the people, the people’s religion, our culture, livelihood, and health.”   

The top commander also pointed out that the steadfastness of the Iranian people will result in the obliteration of the enemy, which he described as declining like a sunset.

“We will stand firm till the end. The end is the annihilation of the enemy. Basij is also continuing this path to defend the lofty values of the nation under the guidelines of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution,” the IRGC commander was quoted by Fars news agency as saying.

Salami’s remarks came against a backdrop of heightened tensions between Iran and outgoing Trump who, according to The New York Times, asked his senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting two weeks ago whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks. The meeting occurred a day after international inspectors reported a significant increase in the country’s stockpile of nuclear material.

Citing four current and former U.S. officials, The New York Times claimed a range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike, saying the advisers — including Vice President Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary; and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — warned that a strike against Iran’s facilities could easily escalate into a broader conflict in the last weeks of Trump’s presidency.

Pompeo, who reportedly tried to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran, has recently refused to rule out a military strike against Iran if that is what is required “to keep Americans safe”.

In an interview with The National, Pompeo implied that Trump still retains the right to attack Iran.

Asked whether a strike against Iran was being considered, Pompeo succinctly said: “The President of the United States always retains the right to do what's needed to ensure that Americans are safe. It's been our policy for four years. It'll be our policy, so long as we have the responsibility to keep America protected.”

On the other hand, Iran vowed a “crushing” response to any aggression by the U.S.

“Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response,” Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said in what appeared a response to the report of The New York Times.

Analysts also warned that any U.S. attack on Iran will not go unanswered. And this has seemingly encouraged Trump’s advisers to dissuade him from attacking Iran, according to Seyed Hadi Seyed Afghahi, an expert on West Asia.

Seyed Afghahi told the Tehran Times last week that the U.S. president’s advisers warned him that any attack on Iran will most likely set the whole region on fire. According to the expert, these advisers are more aware of the implications of military escalation with Iran than Trump, who may have decided to take revenge from Iran due to its refusal to meet with him and negotiate over a new nuclear deal.

“But if the U.S. strikes, Iran will certainly respond. Iran is fully prepared to respond to any aggression,” Afghahi warned.

At the official level, there have been concerted warning in Iran to make the Trump administration realize that Iran is fully capable to thwart and even respond to any “melancholy adventure” from the United States.

Following the report of The New York Times, Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York, said Iran’s nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes and civilian use and Trump’s policies have not changed that. “However, Iran has proven to be capable of using its legitimate military might to prevent or respond to any melancholy adventure from any aggressor,” he told Reuters.

Furthermore, Afghahi said he had information from reliable military circles that some Iranian officials even hope the U.S. makes a “mistake” so that they can “punish” it.

Military threats from the Trump administration against Iran are nothing new. Trump has regularly threatened Iran with military action over the past two years. Trump's threats were mainly based on the assumption that the U.S. can hit and run.  In other words, the Trump administration has implied that it might launch a limited military campaign against Iran in order to achieve its goals. But Tehran has made it clear that whoever starts a war with Iran will not be the one who finishes it and that a limited war with Iran is pure fantasy.

In an interview with CBS in September 2019, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif famously warned that there would be no limited war with Iran if the U.S. attacked Iran.

“No. No, I'm not confident that we can avoid a war. We- I'm confident that we will not start one but I'm confident that whoever starts one will not be the one who finishes it,” Zarif cautioned at the time. “That means that there won't be a limited war.”

In September 2020, the chief Iranian diplomat once again warned that any war with Iran would be a “mother of all quagmires.” This warning came after a suspected report was published by Politico claiming that Iran was weighing a plot to kill Lana Marks, the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, in revenge for the assassination of IRGC’s Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, a claim that took many by surprise, including the South African government.

“The habitual liar [Mike Pompeo] bamboozled Donald Trump into assassinating ISIS' enemy #1 by raising a false alarm. Now he's trying to sucker him into mother of all quagmires by leaking a new false alarm,” Zarif tweeted.

Zarif’s tweet came in response to another tweet by Trump in which the U.S. president threatened to launch “an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”

Trump never dared launch such an attack and the military option, in general, has since been increasingly eroding in a way that it became obsolete by the day.

PA/PA