Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said over the weekend that U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threats against Iran demonstrate that he lacks the experience to wage a war against the Islamic Republic.
Speaking with Iran’s Channel 1 on Sept. 19, the Iranian general said that the U.S. military’s weaponry is outdated and that it is incapable of waging a war against Iran, and that the U.S. economy cannot support a prolonged conflict. The American government, said Salami, cannot even manage a pandemic.
Iran, insisted Salami, is prepared to fight the United States, is capable of conquering all U.S. bases in the region and has been perfecting its “defensive capabilities” since the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
He added that Tehran has “thousands of regiments on the ground” throughout the region.
Referring to Trump’s statement that should Iran attempt to retaliate for the killing of IRGC Quds Force Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the U.S. response would be “1,000 times greater,” Salami said this was “unfathomable.” He added if Trump had suggested that the response would be two or three times as great, that would have been a plausible enough exaggeration for the purpose of psychological warfare.
Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Iraq on Jan. 3.
With regard to reports that Iran sought to retaliate by assassinating the U.S. ambassador to South Africa, Salami said such an attack would be “ridiculous.”
Iran, he said, is “an honorable and noble nation” and would not kill someone who had no part in Soleimani’s death. He added that the best revenge would be to defeat “the hegemonic order [of the West].”
Defeating the United States, he said, would be the most appropriate vengeance for the blood of Soleimani, not the killing of “of some soldiers or an ambassador somewhere.”
