debkafile Exclusive: Frontrunner as next Revolutionary Guards chief threatens US world interests and Israel if Iran is attacked

Mohammad Baqer Solghadr, deputy interior minister, has been tagged for this top post by Iranian leaders engrossed in war preparations, according to debkafile‘s Iranian sources. He told the official Iranian news agency IRNA Thursday: “Nowhere would be safe for America with (Iran’s) long-range missiles… we can fire tens of thousands of missiles every day.” He added: “With long-range missiles Iran can also threaten Israel as America’s ally” and US Middle East bases.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Solghadr was not overstating Iran’s missile capabilities. The Islamic Republic’s expanded war preparations must be taken into account as encompassing Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas, the Jihad Islami, the Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Resistance Committees. Tehran has armed and harnessed these allies and proxies for response to a US or Israeli attack on Iran which Tehran is certain is planned for the summer months.
They have been fed with an assortment of missiles of varying ranges by Iranian air and sea lifts. Putting together the missile arsenals piled up in Iran, Syria, and amassed by Hizballah and Palestinian groups yields a total that makes a daily barrage of several thousand missiles against Israel and US regional bases feasible. This deterrent, put in place over several months, allowed Zolghadr to issue his threat with confidence.
His words were also a response to last week’s visits by US defense secretary Robert Gates to Egypt, Jordan, Israel and Iraq, which Tehran took to be a rallying of allies as part of Washington’s preparations for war.
In Ankara, the European Union’s foreign policy executive Javier Solana and Iran’s nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani held a second session Thursday, April 26, aimed at ending the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. Solana reported progress but “no big breakthrough.”