Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday that the United States is incapable of launching a military strike against Iran but would "regret" an attack if it carried one out.
"America is today incapable of staging a military strike against Iran for several reasons," Ahmadinejad told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in an interview, according to an Arabic voice-over of his remarks in Farsi.
The ground is not prepared for a strike in either economic, political or military terms, he said.
"And of course, they know full well that the Iranian people's response (to any attack) will be harsh, and they will regret it," Ahmadinejad said.
"In practice, then, they do not want to launch a strike against Iran. They are agitating and applying pressure on (UN) Security Council members in order to deceive and extricate themselves from the impasse in which they are," he added.
US Democratic lawmakers on Friday warned the Bush administration was "beating the drums for war" with Iran, and vowed to wield constitutional powers to thwart any military strike.
Their comments came as US President George W. Bush fired off a fresh warning that international pressure would grow on the Islamic Republic, unless Tehran agreed to suspend enriching uranium.
Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear programme as cover for a drive to develop an atomic bomb, a charge Iran strongly denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity.
