Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards warned the US against attacking the Islamic Republic, a news agency reported yesterday, two days after the UN imposed new sanctions on Iran.
International tension over Iran's disputed nuclear program has risen further in recent days, sending oil and gold prices higher. The West strongly suspects Iran's nuclear activities are aimed at producing weapons, though Tehran says they are exclusively for the production of energy.
Iran said on Sunday it would limit cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog and vowed not to halt its atomic plans "even for one second" after the UN Security Council voted to impose new arms and financial sanctions on Tehran.
The US, leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear ambitions, has said it prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis but has not ruled out military options.
"If America starts a war against Iran, it won't be the one who finishes it," Morteza Saffari, naval forces commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
"Our people will not even allow one American soldier to enter our country," he said.
The Revolutionary Guards is the ideologically-driven wing of Iran's armed forces, with a separate command structure from that of the regular military.
On Saturday the UN Security Council approved the sanctions for Tehran's refusal to suspend its nuclear program, but major powers offered new talks and renewed an economic and technological incentive package offer.
The resolution goes beyond the nuclear sphere by banning Iranian arms exports and freezing financial assets abroad of 28 individuals and entities, including state-owned Bank Sepah and the commanders of the Revolutionary Guards.
The sanctions will stay in place until Iran halts the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, which can be used to make a bomb or to generate power. Iran has 60 days to comply or face possible new sanctions.
"Iran will not stop its peaceful and legal nuclear trend even for one second because of such an illegal resolution," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on his Web site www.president.ir on Sunday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said ``a few select countries don't have the right to abuse the Security Council'' and described the new sanctions as ``illegal, unwarranted and unjustified.''
He said they undermine the credibility of the Security Council.
Mottaki said Iran has repeatedly sought negotiations with the powers that drafted the resolution against his country: the five permanent council members -- the US, Britain, France, Russia and China -- and Germany. But he accused them of lacking the political will to reach a breakthrough.
``If this political will existed, the other side wouldn't have imposed preconditions on the talks,'' Mottaki said, referring to demands by the US and its allies that Iran first halt enrichment before they engage in negotiations on its nuclear program.
Mottaki said the world has two options to proceed on the nuclear issue -- continued negotiations or confrontation -- and the resolution was the wrong choice.
In Tehran, citizens brushed off news of the latest sanctions.
``Why should we care about sanctions?'' asked Ali Reza, a 21-year-old shopping for a digital camera on Sunday with his girlfriend. ``We've become accustomed to this kind of news. As long as I can remember, there have been such reports in the air.''
Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian political commentator, said that until the sanctions hit normal Iranians like Reza -- and the drafters of the UN resolution went to great pains to point out that they did not -- Iranians would continue to shrug them off.
``Neither Western people nor Iranians would benefit from such confrontation,'' said Lida Anvari, who was jogging with her husband in a downtown park.
Her husband nodded in agreement, and both said they were fed up with the news.
Former UN nuclear inspector David Albright said Saturday's decision could clear the path for Iran to do clandestine nuclear work related to its enrichment program -- a possible pathway to nuclear arms.
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