Halos and warheads

The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has brazenly summoned the United States to make good on its promise of action against his country, vowing that the America would not succeed.

General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the Guards' chief commander, has been reported as saying that Iran has been keeping a close eye on American troops and their operations in the Gulf for the past 2 years, and as such that country was ready for anything ranging from sanctions to military action.

"You can start a war but it won't be you who finishes it," said Safavi to the US, adding that they should "first get out of their quagmire in Iraq before getting into an even bigger one." These statements come amidst a flurry of speculations on what the United States will do about Iran's nuclear ambitions.

The president of Iran does not seem fazed either; in his usual line of anti-Semitic platitudes, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been cited outlining an 'inevitable' end to the state of Israel.

"The Zionist regime is a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm," said the Islamist President on Friday, at a conference held in Tehran to lobby financial support for the Palestinian Authority whose administration has been in dire need since the US, EU and Israel halted funding the Hamas-led government of the occupied territory of Palestine.

Karl Rove, US president George W Bush's political adviser, says a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear stand may not be feasable as Ahmadinejad is "not a rational human being."

Ahmedinejad has reportedly said he felt he had a halo around him that transfixed UN delegates as he made a speech at the General Assembly last year.