Iran's parliament speaker rules out the possibility of a US-led war against Tehran, saying that Washington is targeting his country's national unity, Press TV reported.
"The Western and American strategy is to make us waste away our national strengths through internal strife," Ali Larijani said as he addressed a gathering of police commanders in the central Iranian city of Qom on Thursday.
"The election was what they used as pretext for achieving that goal, but they were actually trying to create discord by targeting two basic pillars, the clergy and sacred teachings as well as the Velayat-e-Faqih [literally, rule of the religious authority]."
Larijani said that US President Barack Obama, at the start of his term, changed Washington's rhetoric towards Muslims and their rights since this new strategy, according to the parliament speaker, was a necessary step in altering the US image.
However, the sanctions that his administration later passed against Iran showed his earlier promises to be nothing more than empty speech.
The Iranian parliament speaker said that although the US had used the presidential election as a pretext to sow discord among the nation they focused their destructive efforts on Velayat-e-Faqih. This is while the only role the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei played was preparing the grounds for the large turnout, he added.
"What does it have to do with the Velay-e-Faqih. This shows that this has nothing to do with the elections," he added, pointing out that recent disturbances in Iran proved that the country's sovereignty was being targeted.
He then went on to advise certain political figures against trying to smear Mohsen Rezaei, one of the four presidential candidates, who ran in the June 12 election.
Larijani drew on Rezaei's reputation as a war-time veteran and said that it was not fair to question his character because he may have some different opinions.
"Naturally, anyone who ventures into the political scene will encounter some criticism, but why are you trying to undermine the efforts of this committed and selfless individual by introducing inaccurate views about the war?" he asked.