Iran commander doubts attack is coming

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TEHRAN, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Sunday threats of an attack by Israel or the United States were likely just political posturing.

Mohammad Ali Jafari said he considered saber-rattling by Israeli and U.S. leaders against Iran's nuclear program to be a "soft" threat geared more toward scoring political points rather than starting an actual war, the Mehr News Agency said.

"Today's threats against the revolution and the system are more of a soft kind, or half-hard," Jafari told reporters at a Tehran news conference. "We hope the threats would not become hard and physical, but if they are real, Sepah (the Revolutionary Guards) along with the other forces will be ready to counter them."

Jafari said he also expected Iran to have allies throughout the Muslim world in the event of an attack. "Two factors are important for us in countering the Zionist regime," he said. "The first factor is missiles in our disposal and the second factor is Muslim forces in regional countries."

Israel would likely have to launch the attack on its own without the full assistance of the United States, but Iran had no plans for a pre-emptive strike, he said.

Jafari, however, distanced Iran from the recent violent demonstrations against the United States across the Middle East. The Iranian Student News Agency said Jafari condemned the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, although he also said anger at a U.S.-made video slamming Islam was justified.

"This is definitely no justification and it is not correct, but it deeply hurt Muslims sentiments and the only thing they could do was to voice their protest at the embassies," he told reporters.