Attack on Iran ‘will spark all-out war’
US warned while weighing strike response
DUBAI: Any attack on Iran by the US or Saudi Arabia will spark an “all-out war”, Teheran’s top diplomat warned, raising the stakes as Washington and Riyadh weigh a response to a drone-and-missile strike on the kingdom’s oil industry that shook global energy markets.
The comments by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (pic) represented the starkest warning yet by
Iran in a long summer of mysterious attacks and incidents following the collapse of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, more than a year after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the accord.
They appeared to be aimed directly at US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who while on a trip to the region earlier referred to Saturday’s attack in Saudi Arabia as an “act of war”.
Along with the sharp language, however, there also were signals from both sides of wanting to avoid a confrontation.
On Thursday evening, a spokesman at Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Zarif and President Hassan Rouhani had received US visas to attend next week’s annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
In his comments, Zarif sought to expose current strains between the Americans and the Saudis under Trump, who long has criticised US wars in the Middle East.
Trump’s close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been challenged by opponents following the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and the kingdom’s long, bloody war in Yemen.
That country’s Houthi rebels claimed the oil field attack on Saturday in Saudi Arabia, although the US alleges Iran carried it out.
“I think it is important for the Saudi government to understand what they’re trying to achieve. Do they want to fight Iran until the last American soldier? Is that their aim?” Zarif asked in a CNN interview.
“They can be assured that this won’t be the case ... because Iran will defend itself.”
Asked by the broadcaster what would be the consequence of a US or Saudi strike, Zarif bluntly said: “An all-out war.”
“I’m making a very serious statement that we don’t want war. We don’t want to engage in a military confrontation,” he said. “We believe that a military confrontation based on deception is awful.”
Zarif, who was to travel to New York yesterday, added: “We’ll have a lot of casualties, but we won’t blink to defend our territory.”
Pompeo, who was in the United Arab Emirates, dismissed Zarif’s remarks, saying: “I am here (doing) active diplomacy while the foreign minister of Iran is threatening all-out war to fight to the last American.”
Pompeo said he hoped Iran would choose a path towards peace, but he remained doubtful. He described “an enormous consensus in the region” that Iran carried out the attack.
“There are still those today who think, ‘Boy, if we just give Iran a little bit more money they’ll become a peaceful nation,’” he said. “We can see that that does not work.”
Pompeo met Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The UAE is a close ally of Saudi Arabia and joined the kingdom in its war with the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The four-year-old war has killed tens of thousands of people and destroyed much of the country, with millions more driven from their homes.