Iran readies for feared attack by U.S.

Iran has begun preparing for a possible U.S. attack, announcing efforts to bolster and mobilize recruits in citizens’ militias and making plans to engage in the type of “asymmetrical” warfare used against American troops in neighboring Iraq.

“Iran would respond within 15 minutes to any attack by the United States or any other country,” an Iranian official close to the hard-line camp, which runs the country’s security and military apparatus, said on the condition of anonymity.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have increased over Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology.

Tehran insists its desire for atomic energy is entirely peaceful while Washington accuses the Muslim state of using nuclear energy as a fig leaf to make weapons.

President Bush said in an interview with Belgian television yesterday that he strongly prefers a diplomatic effort over military action to deal with Iran.

“You never want a president to say never,” Mr. Bush said, “but military action is … never the president’s first choice. Diplomacy is always the president’s first choice, at least my first choice.”

The president issued his strongest warning to Iran during last month’s State of the Union speech, telling Tehran that it “must give up” its nuclear program and support for terrorism, and pledging U.S. support for Iranians who openly oppose Iran’s unelected regime.

In recent days, Iranian newspapers have announced efforts to increase the number of the country’s 7-million-strong “Basiji” militia forces, which were deployed in human wave attacks against Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

Iranian military authorities have paraded long-range North Korean-designed Shahab missiles before television cameras. Iranian generals have conducted massive war games near the Iraqi border.

One Western military expert based in Tehran said Iran was sharpening its abilities to wage a guerrilla war.

“Over the last year they’ve developed their tactics of asymmetrical war, which would aim not at resisting a penetration of foreign forces, but to then use them on the ground to all kinds of harmful effect,” he said on the condition of anonymity.

It remains unclear how much of the recent military activity amounts to an actual mobilization and how much is a propaganda ploy.

Iranian officials and analysts have said they want to highlight the potential costs of an attack on Iran to raise the stakes for U.S. officials considering such a move and to frighten a war-weary American public.

“Right now it’s a psychological war,” said Nasser Hadian, a University of Tehran political science professor who recently returned from a three-year stint as a scholar at New York’s Columbia University.

“If America decides to attack, the only ones who could stop it are Iranians,” he said. “Pressure from other countries and inside America is important, but it won’t prevent an attack. The only thing that will prevent an attack is that if America knows it will pay a heavy price.”

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