Iran predicts war

Iran's Revolutionary Guard says expects Israel to launch war

Israel will eventually go beyond threats and will attack Iran, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Reuters,

22 September 2012

As speculation mounts that Israel could launch air strikes on Iran before U.S. elections in November, Mohammad Ali Jafari told a news conference that the Jewish state would be destroyed if it took such a step.

"Their threats only prove that their enmity with Islam and the revolution is serious, and eventually this enmity will lead to physical conflict," Jafari said when asked about Israeli threats to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.

"We are making all efforts to increase our defensive capabilities so that if there is an attack ... we could defend ourselves and other countries that need our help with high defensive capabilities."

Jafari's comments, made at an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military exhibition, come as Israeli leaders have increased their rhetoric against Iran.

"A war will occur, but it's not clear where or when it will be," Jafari was quoted as saying on Saturday. "Israel seeks war with us, but it's not clear when the war will occur."

"Right now they see war as the only method of confrontation," he said.

Israel, which bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar strike against Syria in 2007, has threatened to do the same in Iran if diplomatic efforts fail to stop the nuclear work it believes is aimed at getting weapons capability.

Iran, which says its nuclear work is for peaceful means, has said it could strike U.S. military bases in the region as well as Israel if attacked.

"If they (Israel) start something, they will be destroyed and it will be the end of the story for them," Jafari said, according to ISNA.

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U.S. stops 20 Iran officials attending U.N. assembly

The United States has denied visas to about 20 Iranian government officials hoping to attend next week's United Nations General Assembly, including two ministers, Iran's Fars news agency reported on Saturday.

Reuters,

22 September 2012

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a regular at the assembly since he took office in 2005, will give his final speech there on Wednesday and will address a meeting on the "rule of law" on Monday.

But of the 160-or-so visas requested by the Iranian delegation two months ago, about 20 were turned down, Fars said.

It gave no reason, but many Iranian officials are subject to travel bans under sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department had no immediate comment on the matter.

Fars did not name the two ministers who were denied visas and said Ahmadinejad would be accompanied by his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie and Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

Fars named two of those banned from going to New York as members of Ahmadinejad's staff: Mohammad Shaikhan, in charge of communications and information, and Mohammad Jafar Behdad, in charge of political affairs.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said: "Visas for foreign officials to attend UN meetings in the UN headquarters district are adjudicated in accordance with all applicable laws and procedures including both U.S. law and the UN Headquarters Agreement, however, visa records are confidential."

As U.N. host country, the United States has a policy of issuing visas for members of delegations, in line with a 1947 pact with the United Nations, regardless of disputes with individual countries.

However, it does sometimes refuse entry to government officials and professionals from Iran with which it has had no diplomatic ties since 1979 and which it accuses of seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

In 2009, as Iranian authorities were crushing protests against Ahmadinejad's re-election, Iran said a delegation headed by its first vice president had been refused visas to attend a U.N. conference on the global financial crisis.

Ahmadinejad, whose second and final term in office ends next year, has used previous U.N. speeches to defend a nuclear program he insists is peaceful and to make verbal attacks on Israel, the United States and Europe.

He has questioned the historical truth of the Holocaust and cast doubt on whether Islamist hijackers were really responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001.