Tehran dismisses US virtual embassy

Tensions over Iran's nuclear programme have escalated  A new US State Department website for Iranians, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described as a “virtual Tehran embassy,” won’t make up for decades of hostility toward Iran, the Foreign Ministry said.
“This initiative by the American government is in fact an admission of its mistake in cutting relations between the two nations and turning its back on Iranians,” ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, according to the state-run Mehr news agency. “This action will not make up for the mistake and won’t convey the message of the US to Iranians.”
 The US launched the website on December 6 “to support a more direct and robust engagement between us and the people of Iran,” said WendySherman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, at a briefing on that day.
The Iranian government blocked the site, which is designed to give Iranians basic information on visiting the US, within hours of its debut, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday.
 A senior Iranian lawmaker earlier lauded the Iranina Armed Forces's competence to “effectively down a US spy drone” in the country's east, saying Iran was fully prepared to tackle any espionage campaigns.
The Armed Forces' move in downing the US spy drone displayed “their great capability to defend the country vigorously,” said Chairman of the Majlis Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy Alaeddin Boroujerdi on Wednesday.
He warned the US and other adversary countries that Iran's army will defend the country by means of its “great” achievements in electronic warfare, should the enemy seek to carry out espionage acts by drones or any other vehicles, Fars news agency reported.
On December 4, Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit supposedly downed a US-built RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft after it crossed into Iran's airspace over the border with neighbouring Afghanistan.
A senior Iranian military official said the US reconnaissance drone was seized with minimum damage.
The unnamed Iranian military official added that “due to the clear border violation, the operational and electronic measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Armed Forces against the invading aircraft will not remain limited to Iran's borders."
The RQ-170 is unmanned stealth aircraft designed and developed by the Lockheed Martin Company.
According to reports, two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confirmed that the drone was part of a CIA reconnaissance mission, involving the United States' intelligence community stationed in Afghanistan.
The US military and the CIA use drones to launch missile strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's northwestern tribal region.
As the possibility of war between Iran and its neighbours looms, Israel's Home Front Command on Thursday held a nationwide drill simulating missile attacks on the Jewish state, just days after a report indicated that Iran's Revolutionary Guards were preparing for war.
Air raid sirens blared in Jerusalem and across northern Israel Thursday morning in a test of the warning system. Meanwhile, soldiers with the Home Front Command continued a week-long exercise in southern Israel simulating long-range missile attacks on hospitals, schools and other public buildings where mass casualties would be expected.
Last month, the Home Front Command held a drill simulating a massive unconventional missile strike on Tel Aviv.
Fears of a regional war have been driven by Israel's public debate over whether or not to launch a preemptive attack on Iran's nuclear programme, which the IAEA recently alleged was working toward the goal of nuclear weapons.
According to the British Telegraph, Iran's Revolutionary Guards was certain Israel will attack, and was preparing to retaliate. Western intelligence officials told the newspaper this week that Guards commander Gen. Mohammed Ali Jaafari recently ordered all of Iran's long-range missiles to be moved to more secure locations in preparation for a retaliatory launch against Israel.
While such an exchange would certainly lead to wider hostilities with Syria, Lebanon and possibly the new regime in Egypt, it is unlikely that the entire Arab League would join in an attack on Israel.
The US, on the other hand is seeing rising support for military efforts against Iran. Republican US presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney redoubled their public calls for "covert" operations against Iran and Syria, including sabotage, assassination and aid to opposition forces.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who led the calls for secret war, told a gathering of party activists on Wednesday he would use "covert capability" to bring about "regime replacement" in Tehran.
"They only have one very, very large refinery. I would be focused on how to covertly sabotage it every day," he told the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group highly critical of President Barack Obama's handling of ties to Israel.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, called for Washington to secretly help dissidents in Iran.
"We should also have covert and overt activities to encourage voices of dissent within the country. Ultimately regime change is what's going to be necessary in that setting," he told the group.
Iran’s decades-old suspicion of the US has been intensified by the growing pressure over its nuclear programme, which the US and its main allies accuse of being a cover for the development of nuclear weapons. Iran rejected the claim and said the programme was purely civilian. The US then spearheaded efforts to impose stricter punitive measures against Iran, adding to four rounds of United Nations sanctions.
The US and Iran haven’t had diplomatic relations for more than three decades. After the 1979 revolution that ousted the pro-western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought Shiite Muslim clerics to power, students seized the US Embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days, leading the US to sever ties.
 Iranian officials say the move was the result of American interventions in its domestic affairs, including the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.