The Islamic Republic of Iran’s defensive missile capability, as evident in the country’s retaliatory strikes on American military bases in Iraq, was “very impressive,” and proved that Tehran was prepped in every way to counter any possible attacks on the part of the United States, says a political commentator in New York. RNA - Daniel Lazare, an American journalist and author, made the remark during a Friday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program while commenting on sermons delivered by the supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, as well as the missile attacks on the US airbases and the blow that this dealt to the so-called US grandeur.
The attacks were in retaliation for the US assassination of Iran's top anti-terror commander Qassem Soleimani, with Washington having finally been pressed to disclose the extent of damage to its bases and troops after ten days.
“The [Iran’s] display of missile capability was very impressive; the attack was very well calibrated, Iran was careful to destroy mainly equipment and to spare human casualties… Iran showed that it has very advance missiles which it could deploy to great effect in the event of a major US attack,” Lazare told Press TV on Friday.
The American political analyst also underlined the Europeans’ subservience to the administration in Washington when asked whether the US and the three European signatories to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were depriving the country of its deterrence.
“The US and Europe are in different positions; the US is bent on regime change, it is on a collision course with Iran, the Europeans — Britain, Germany and France — are wringing their hands on the sidelines and try to somehow contain the damage but they have been mainly trying to appease the United States and sort of play a good cop-bad cop game with the Iranians,” Lazare said.
“I think anybody that has been really paying attention was impressed by the accuracy of the Iranian strikes in hitting targets that showed their capability to (reach) American bases in the region as well as our regional partners like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Israel and so forth,” Jatras said.
Ayatollah Khamenei said on Friday that the assassination of the top Iranian commander disgraced the US as it had to own up to the "terrorist" action and see a blow dealt to its global image by Iran's retaliation.
The United States military has said that 11 of its troops were wounded in an Iranian retaliatory missile attack last week despite Washington's initial claim denying casualties.
On January 8, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Assad, and another outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.
The missile operation was in response to the January 3 assassination by US terrorists of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and a group of their companions in Baghdad. The cowardly operation was conducted under US President Donald Trump’s direction. The US Department of Defense took responsibility for the assassination.
Both commanders enjoyed deep reverence among Muslim nations over their endeavors in eliminating the US-sponsored Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.
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