TEHRAN, November 20 (MNA) – A former chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) warns that Israeli regime and its allies will start targeting the country and several other nations in the West Asian region if Palestine falls.“The issue at the center [of the war] is Iran,” Major General Mohsen Rezaei, who currently serves on the Islamic Republic’s Expediency Council, said on Tuesday.

“In this regard, Gaza and Lebanon have turned into the defensive front for all of the countries in West Asia,” he noted, adding, “If Gaza and Lebanon fall, the enemy will start moving towards Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran.” The comments came amid the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza and carnage in Lebanon that have respectively claimed the lives of at least 43,972 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and killed 3,544 Lebanese people.

The brutal military onslaught has been enjoying full-on political, military, and intelligence support on the part of the United States, the regime’s most dedicated ally.

Explaining the reason behind the regime’s warmongering, Rezaei said that by waging the war, the enemy seeks to convey the so-called message that “West Asia is either a place for us or the Islamic Republic.” He said the current war was “a matter of fate” for the regime and Washington, the former waging it to prevent its elimination from the region, and the latter engaging in it to “prolong its imperialism and [so-called] superpower status in the region.” According to Rezaei, the warfare is aimed at “destroying Islam and confronting Iran’s regional presence.” MA/Press TV