Iran - 'To annihilate Israel, we need just 24 hours and an excuse'.

"Empty barrels make the most noise"

Iran - 'To annihilate Israel, we need just 24 hours and an excuse'.(JPost).Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi , the representative of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the Islamic Republic's Qods Force, said this week that Iran needed just '24 hours and an excuse' to destroy Israel. In his first public interview for a year, reported in the Persian-language Jahan News, which is close to the regime, Shirazi said if Israel attacked Iran the Islamic Republic would be able to turn the war in to a war of attrition which would lead to Israel's destruction. "If such a war does happen, it would not be a long war, and it would benefit the entire Islamic Ummah [global community of Muslims]. We have expertise in fighting wars of attrition and Israel cannot fight a war of attrition," he said, referring to Iran's eight year war of attrition against Iraq.
Khamenei appointed Shirazi a year ago as his representative to the Qods Force, the highly secretive extraterritorial wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to the Supreme Leader. The Qods Force, whose exact size is unknown, is responsible for IRGC operations outside Iran, including in Syria. In August, this year, the US Department of the Treasury identified the Qods Force as "a conduit for Iran’s material support to the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate", and in 2011 designated Suleimani as a terrorist entity for his personal support for the Syrian regime. In his interview, Shirazi said that Israel was "close to annihilation" and wanted to attack Iran as an act of desperation. "Are our enemies intelligent, wise or foolish? They are foolish. It's also possible that they will do this foolish thing [and attack Iran]. Why do we sometimes say this is the strongest probability? Because today the Israelis are telling us that 'we are not the Israel of yesterday, we are getting weaker day by day and the Islamic Republic is getting stronger day by day'," he added. "Well, when Israel finds itself in danger of extinction, it flails around, and so it's easy for it to do foolish things and will start a war just to sting Iran." Shirazi's remarks echo those of other senior Iranian military leaders, who have repeatedly threatened as a deterrent to any attack by the US and its allies on its nuclear facilities that Iran would respond by fighting a war of attrition. Iran has also repeatedly paraded what it claims are advances in military technologies, including in ballistic missile technologies, which could be used in such a war.Read the full story here.