Iran monitoring all regional, trans-regional moves

Commander of the Iranian Army Ground Force Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan hailed the Iranian Armed Forces for their might and power, and said they are monitoring the threatening moves of all regional and trans-regional actors."All the Iranian Armed Forces are at a high level of preparedness and mightiness and they are monitoring the regional and trans-regional moves and threats," Pourdastan said on Thursday. Meantime, he foresaw a gloomy future for the US and its allies in the region, and said the culture of Iran and its Islamic Revolution is spreading in the region, meaning that the US won't have any place to remain in the Middle-East in the near future. In relevant remarks in July, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei also praised the military might and power of the Iranian Army and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and said these two, as pillars of Iran's defensive power, are well capable of defending the country's interests in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. The Navy and the IRGC forces are the symbols of the Iranian nation's might in defending the interests of the country in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman," Ayatollah Khamenei said after visiting the Navy's first naval zone in the Southern Hormozgan province. Iran's naval power has even been acknowledged by foes. In a Sep. 11, 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy also said that in the two decades since the Iraqi imposed war on Iran, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces. According to the report, Iran's Navy has been transformed into a highly motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world's oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz. The study says that if Washington takes military action against the Islamic Republic, the scale of Iran's response would likely be proportional to the scale of the damage inflicted on Iranian assets. The Islamic Republic's top military officials have repeatedly warned that in case of an attack by either the US or Israel, the country would target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. An estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply passes through the waterway. A recent study by a fellow at Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Caitlin Talmadge, warned that Iran could use mines as well as missiles to block the strait, and that "it could take many weeks, even months, to restore the full flow of commerce, and more time still for the oil markets to be convinced that stability had returned".