TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi delivered a full-throated message to U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday that pulled no punches: The U.S. will face direct consequences if it helps Israel respond to Iran’s October 1 retaliatory attack. 

“Anybody with knowledge or understanding of ‘how and when Israel was going to attack Iran’, and/or providing the means and backing for such folly, should logically be held accountable for any possible causality,” Araqchi wrote on his X account, with his post also featuring a picture of Biden.

The U.S. President said Washington had been informed about the circumstances of Israel’s looming attack against Iran during a Friday visit to Germany. He did not comment on how or when the aggression would be carried out. 

Israel says it is preparing to respond to Iran’s Operation True Promise II, which saw Tehran fire approximately 200 missiles at the occupied territories early this month. Iran managed to hit a number of Israeli military and intelligence bases in retaliation for the regime’s assassination of top Resistance figures, including Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Sayyad Hassan Nasrallah. 

In separate remarks on Friday, Araqchi said neighboring countries had told him that they would not allow Israel to use their airspace to harm Iran.  “All the countries that are geographically located between us and the Zionist regime said that they will not allow their soil to be used against Iran,” The foreign minister said during a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart in Istanbul. 

Araqchi who has had back-to-back trips to several regional countries in the past 10 days said all states in the region are of the mind that Israel should be held accountable for its crimes. 

“There is an outright rebuke of the crimes of the Zionist regime among them, and they believe that this regime should be condemned and forced to stop its crimes in Gaza and Lebanon,” he said, adding there is complete solidarity between the regional countries and the besieged and embattled population in Gaza. 

Elsewhere in his remarks, the top diplomat described the region as a "powder keg" with a high risk of conflict, blaming Israel for the escalating tensions. He pointedly accused Israel of being the "most important source of insecurity in the world," highlighting the regime's disregard for international law and its emboldened actions due to U.S. support. 

“The Zionist regime is the most important source of insecurity in the world, and the international mechanisms have not been able to hinder these crimes, and the US support has made the leaders of the Zionist regime and Netanyahu bolder,” he said.

“This regime has no limits in violating international regulations, and we underpin the necessity of stopping the war and delivery of humanitarian aid.”

Israel’s ongoing war in the besieged Gaza Strip which began over a year ago has so far resulted in the slaughter of over 42,000 Palestinians and tens of thousands of more injuries. Israel has also devastated the majority of the enclave by flattening much of its infrastructure as well as residential buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, and places of worship. Analysts believe the regime’s main goal has been to make Gaza uninhabitable. 

Zionist authorities have now expanded their war to include Lebanon. The Arab country has been the target of numerous terror attacks by Israeli fighter jets in the past weeks, with over 1.5 million Lebanese believed to have been internally displaced. 

Consternation is building as the regime is also bracing to target Iran, a move seen as a dangerous step towards a potential regional conflagration with international and long-standing reverberations. The U.S. has done very little to rein in Israel in the past year, as regional masses and officials accuse the U.S. of direct complicity in Israeli crimes. Iran has said any aggression against its soil would be met with very harsh and powerful reactions.