General: Attack on Iran would cause WWIII

Iranian deputy chief of staff: Any Israeli or US aggression would cause elimination of "fake or artificial regimes."

By JPOST.COM STAFF
IAF jet great 224.88 (photo credit: AP [file])
IAF jet great 224.88
(photo credit: AP [file])
Should Israel or the United States attack Iran, it would be the start of another World War, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff General Masoud Jazayeri warned on Saturday. "Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," the Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted the top Iranian official as saying. "The unrestrained greed of the US leadership and global Zionism... is leading the world to the brink of a precipice." "It is evident that if such a challenge occurs, the fake and artificial regimes will be eliminated before anything," he said. The news agency also quoted Jordan's King Abdullah II as saying that if an attack was launched against Iran, it would fail to achieve its objectives. "Israel doesn't have the ability to completely destroy the atomic reactor in Teheran," Abdullah claimed, reiterating that the Islamic regime insists that its nuclear program is not for military purposes but rather for civilian use alone. "What Iran is trying to tell us, in my opinion, is that we must recognize [the country] as a key international player," the Jordanian king said, warning that "any military action against Teheran will have serious consequences on all of the Middle East, and the states in the region will be forced to deal with the situation." On Friday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Reza Sheikh Attar said that the country had increased the number of operating centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant to 4,000. The number was up from the 3,000 centrifuges that Iran announced in November that it was operating at its plant in the central city of Natanz. Still, it was well below the 6,000 it said last year it would operate by Summer 2008, suggesting that the program may be behind schedule. AP contributed to this report