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TEHRAN, June 28: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said that Tehran will impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil route if the country is attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear programme have been one factor propping up sky-high oil prices.
“Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy,” Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e Jam newspaper in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far.
“Regarding the main route for exiting energy, Iran will definitely act to impose control on the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz,” Jafari said of the Gulf waterway through which about two-fifths of all globally traded oil passes.
The Islamic Republic, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, insists its nuclear programme is peaceful and aimed at generating electricity. But the West and Israel fear Iran is seeking to build atomic bombs. Israel is believed to be the only Middle East state with nuclear arms.
Washington has said it wants diplomacy to end the nuclear row but has not ruled out military action should that fail.
Scope of conflict
“If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region, definitely the scope (of the confrontation) will reach the oil issue,” Jafari said.
The Revolutionary Guards are the ideologically driven wing of Iran’s military with air, sea and land capabilities, and a separate command structure to regular units.
“After this action (of Iran imposing controls on the Gulf waterway), the oil price will rise very considerably and this is among the factors deterring the enemies,” Jafari said.
He said any military action might “be able to delay Iran’s nuclear activities but this delay will certainly be very short.”
Jafari warned neighbours not to let their territory be used.
“If the attack takes place from the soil of another country ... the country attacked has the right to respond to the enemy’s military action from where the operation started,” he said. Kuwait, the launchpad for the US-led invasion of Iraq, and Iraq itself, where US troops are now stationed, have both said they would not let their land be used for a strike on Iran. The US military has bases in other Gulf states and Afghanistan.
Jafari said US forces were “more vulnerable than Israelis” because of their troops in the area.—Reuters
