Iran’s strike on US bases was ‘measured, proportionate response’: Iranian envoy

NEW YORK, Jan 09 (APP):Iran has no plans to step up a confrontation with the United States after it fired missiles at US military bases in Iraq in “a measured, proportionate response” to the assassination of Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian commander, Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi, has said.

However, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, speaking to National Public Radio (NPR), said Iran was prepared for further action if the US renewed its aggression. He also denied the Trump administration’s assertion that Gen Soleimani had been plotting an attack on US persons or interests.

Ravanchi said Iran had “acted in accordance with our rights based on the United Nations Charter” in the attack early Wednesday morning local time that targeted the Ain al-Assad air base in Iraq and a second US base at Irbil with some two dozen ballistic missiles.
“As far as Iran is concerned, that action was concluded last night,” he said.

Asked whether Iran was finished with its retaliatory actions, he said, “It depends on the United States.”

“If the U.S. ventures to attacking Iran again, definitely proportionate response will be taken in response to that attack,” the Iranian envoy said.

In a nationally televised address on Wednesday, President Donald Trump said Iran appeared “to be standing down” after the attacks on the US bases, in which, he said, “no Americans were harmed.”

According to reports, there was only moderate damage at the bases, leading some analysts to speculate that Tehran responded in such a way as to deliberately avoid casualties. Even so, some experts have warned that Iran’s missile attack could be a prelude to more attacks against the US carried out instead by Tehran’s proxies in the region.

Ravanchi told NPR that Iran was “not responsible for any other people to do whatever they’re going to do.”

“I am not suggesting anything to accept or to reject any sort of actions by others,” he said.
Trump has claimed that an American drone strike last week in Iraq that killed Soleimani was triggered by intelligence that the Quds Force commander was in Iraq as part of preparations for an attack directed at the US. In his Wednesday address, the president reiterated that Soleimani “should have been terminated long ago”.

But Ravanchi said it was the duty of the US “to prove” its claim that Soleimani was planning to kill Americans.

Instead, it is the US that “had been plotting to kill Qassem Soleimani for quite some time,” he said. “It is crystal clear that they wanted to kill him a few months ago.”

Asked why the Iranian general was in Baghdad last week, Ravanchi denied that it had anything to do with a plot against the US.

“He was there to help the Iraqi armed forces to fight terrorists, at the invitation of the Iraqi government,” he said, adding that Soleimani had been “instrumental” in defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

“He was a popular figure in all of these countries, not only in Iran, but in the neighbouring countries, because he sacrificed a lot to preserve the territorial integrity and sovereignty of these countries,” Ravanchi said.