Supreme leader Khamenei says Iran would retaliate against attacks

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Friday that Iran will strike back if the United States and other countries attack it with military strikes or economic sanctions.

Khamenei said that Iran had its own tools to counter threats, which it would use “if necessary,” and that a war with Iran would harm the United States “10 times more.”

“The U.S. and others must be aware that we have threats in the face of threats and oil embargo that will be carried out when deemed necessary,” Khamenei said at Friday prayers, according to Iran’s Mehr News Agency.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta thinks “there is a strong likelihood” that Israel will attack Iran in the spring to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. The United States, Israel and others think Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons, while Iran says its nuclear program is to produce energy.

Iran recently moved uranium enrichment production into an underground bunker.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at a conference in Israel that “Whoever says 'later', could find that it is too late," referencing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to Haaretz.

President Obama has said that no options are off the table to stop Iran. Panetta did not comment publicly on the Post report while he met with NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

The United States and Europe have recently enacted economic sanctions against Iran to try and stop its nuclear program, moves that have also prompted protests and threats from Iran.

Khamenei said Friday that the U.S. threats “are a sign of its failure.”

“That’s why it (the US) resorts to force,” Khamenei said, according to the Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency. “They do not have any logic except using force and have no way but bloodshed to go forward.”

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