By Patrick Donahue
June 20 (Bloomberg) -- Iran would respond to an Israeli attack on nuclear facilities with a ``heavy blow,'' a senior cleric said, following a New York Times report that Israel carried out an exercise that could prepare it for such a strike.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, leading Friday prayers in Tehran, said today that Iran favored dialogue and would resist ``mischievous acts,'' the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said. Such an attack would prompt an ``uproar on the part of our nation,'' Khatami said.
``If enemies, especially Israelis and their U.S. supporters, wish to speak in the language of force, they should rest assured they will be dealt a heavy blow on the face by the Iranian nation,'' the ayatollah said, according to IRNA.
Khatami spoke after the report in today's Times that the Israeli military had carried out maneuvers this month over the eastern Mediterranean with more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters as well as refueling tankers. Citing unidentified U.S. officials, the report said that the 900-mile (1,450-kilometer) range exercise could be a rehearsal for an attack against the Iranian nuclear plant in Natanz and Iran's long-range conventional missiles.
Iran doesn't recognize Israel and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly predicted the end of the Jewish state.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the ``Israeli Air Force regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel.'' David Segal, spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington, declined to comment further.
``We are not commenting on this one,'' U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Kate Starr said. White House spokesman Tony Fratto also declined to comment.
Crude oil rose today following the Times report that Israel held a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iranian nuclear targets, and as the weaker dollar enhanced the appeal of commodities as a currency hedge.
UN Sanctions
The United Nations Security Council has approved three rounds of sanctions against Iran for its failure to halt uranium enrichment, a process used for making fuel for civilian energy or a bomb. The U.S. and European allies accuse Iran of trying to develop a bomb; Iran insists its activities are peaceful and legal under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
A task force on Iran policy and U.S.-Israel relations organized by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said June 16 that Israel may be more inclined to attack Iran because a U.S. intelligence assessment last year eroded support for preventing Iran's government from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The report, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in December, said Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Reactions to the NIE ``may have heightened the inclination of some Israeli strategists to give further consideration to unilateral military action to forestall Iran's development of a nuclear capability,'' the task force said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday that Tehran was studying an incentive package to stop enrichment. Still, Iran's Ambassador to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said the previous day that Iran won't be pushed into suspending enrichment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at
pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 20, 2008 10:01 EDT
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Iran Would Respond to Attack With `Heavy Blow' (Update2) 
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