General: Attack on Iran would trigger war

(CNN) -- Any strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would be regarded as the beginning of war, a senior Iranian military official says.

Gen. Mohammed Ali-Jaafari, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Thursday that Iran would respond to any attack, according to a report Friday from Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency.

"Any act on Iran will be considered [a] start of war," Ali-Jaafari said.

Israel and Iran have traded threats in recent weeks as Western countries worry that Iran wants to build nuclear weapons.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb.

The administration has said it is trying to isolate Iran diplomatically to force it to reveal its nuclear ambitions, but Bush has said that "all options" are open in dealing with the issue.

Iran insists that its nuclear program's only purpose is providing civilian electric power.

However, Iran has refused to meet U.N. Security Council demands that it halt its uranium enrichment work, and U.N. nuclear inspectors say Tehran has held back critical information that could determine whether it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

There are also concerns that Israel, which has long been concerned that Iran wants to attack it, is weighing a unilateral strike against the Islamic Republic.

Israel, believed to have its own nuclear arsenal, conducted a military exercise in the eastern Mediterranean in early June involving dozens of warplanes and aerial tankers.

The distance involved in the exercise was roughly the same as would be required for a possible strike on the Iranian nuclear fuel plant at Natanz, a U.S. military official said.

Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in Iraq in 1981 and a suspected nuclear site in Syria last year.

An Israeli Cabinet member, Shaul Mofaz, recently said the Jewish state "will attack" Iran if Tehran doesn't halt its efforts to develop nuclear weaponry.

He reflected a prevailing view among Israeli politicians that international sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear program aren't working.

In response to a statement by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map, Mofaz said: "He will disappear before Israel does."

Meanwhile, Iran's foreign minister said Thursday that his country would consider temporarily halting part of its uranium enrichment program in an effort to persuade the world to "look to Iran through a different lens."

Iran "is committed to its constructive approach and the resolution of regional and international affairs and problems," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, to be aired Sunday.

In recent talks between Iran and the European Union , the EU offered to suspend further sanctions if Iran takes a six-week break from manufacturing centrifuges that enrich uranium.

"We believe that the nature of our exchanges, both in format and in substance, were different than of previous times," Mottaki said.

"So I believe that we are now in a new environment with a new approaching perspective, so allow us time to begin this process to make the necessary planning for it," he added.

Mottaki also suggested Iran would never launch an unprovoked attack on Israel, and he expressed optimism about relations between Iran and the United States after this fall's U.S. presidential election.

"We hear new voices in America; we see new approaches," he said. "And we think that the rational thinkers in America can, based on these new approaches, see the reality as it is."

He said the comment was not geared specifically toward presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who has said he would consider "tough diplomacy" with so-called "rogue nations," like Iran, that the Bush administration has refused to negotiate with.

"By stating this position, he actually faced some problems. So by commenting on this, we do not want to create further problems for the U.S. presidential candidates," Mottaki said.

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