TEHRAN, 9 January 2007 — A top officer in the volunteer Basij militia said yesterday Iran could block oil traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz if the West threatens its economy over Tehran’s nuclear program.
“Given Iran’s authority over the Strait of Hormuz, the passageway to more than 40 percent of the world’s energy, we have become so strong that the world’s economic and energy security are in the hands of Iran,” deputy commander of Basij, Gen. Majid Mir Ahmadi, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.
“We can exert pressure on the US and British economies as much as we ourselves are put under pressure,” he said.
“US allies, especially those who host US military sites or facilitate American strategies against us, are exposed to our threat,” Mir Ahmadi added. “This is the Islamic republic’s strategy in the Gulf — security for everyone or for nobody.”
Iran controls one side of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway at the mouth of the Gulf. Mir Ahmadi did not say how oil tanker traffic through the Gulf would be affected but some Iranian officials have previously hinted Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, could use oil as a weapon in its nuclear standoff with the West.
Mir Ahmadi said any aggression against Iran could stir trouble for the United States or Israel, which Iran refuses to recognize.
Israel has refused to rule out pre-emptive military action against Iran along the lines of its 1981 airstrike against an atomic reactor in Iraq. “We can endanger the Zionist regime’s security,” Mir Ahmadi said.
Iran is locked in an international standoff over its controversial nuclear program, which the West fears is a front to make nuclear weapons. In December, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution imposing sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program for defying international calls to freeze uranium enrichment.
Iran vehemently denies charges it wants to manufacture nuclear weapons, insisting that it wants to enrich uranium purely for peaceful energy ends.
The country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday Tehran would not give up its development of nuclear technology in the face of Western pressure.
“The Iranian nation surely will not abandon its right and Iranian officials have no right to deprive the nation of its right,” Khamenei was quoted as saying on the occasion of a festival.
Khamenei, who was shown on television addressing visiting religious leaders from the city of Qom, was making his first public appearance since rumors appeared on websites on Thursday that he had died.
