IRGC Warning.

The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Gen. Yehya Rahim Safavi on April 14 warned the US not to attack Iran, saying American troops in Iraq and the region were "vulnerable". He added: "You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it. The Iranian armed forces are totally ready to defend the country. If the Americans attack Iran, they will be making a second strategic error after their attack against Iraq". Safavi, speaking on the sidelines of the pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran, said of the US. "I would advise them to first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one. Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan".

Iran's leaders launched a string of attacks against the US and Israel on April 14, with Khamenei accusing the US of conspiring against Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in order to place the entire region under Israeli control. Ahmadi-Nejad said: "The Zionist regime is an injustice and by its very nature a permanent threat".

Unfazed by his critics in Europe and the US, Ahmadi-Nejad went on to repeat his controversial stance on the Jewish Holocaust, saying: "If there is serious doubt over the Holocaust, there is no doubt over the catastrophe and Holocaust being faced by the Palestinians". He had previously dismissed as a "myth" the killing of millions of Jews by the Nazis and their allies in World War II. He said: "I tell the governments who support Zionism to...let the migrants [Jews] return to their countries of origin. If you think you owe them something, give them some of your land".

The Tehran conference was attended by delegates and MPs from around the world, many of them from the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Khamenei said: "The plots by the US against Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon aimed at governing the Middle East with the control of the Zionist regime will not succeed. If, by accident, the American government saw reason, it would respect the wish of the Iraqi people to form its government, respect the Palestinian government, free the prisoners of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, cease the plot [and] not create tension in the Persian Gulf region".