Iran should increase its military might to prevent a war, but it is not a threat to other countries, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a gathering of air force commanders on Saturday. Tehran, he added, is determined to guarantee its own security.
"Iran poses no threat to any other country. ... Our only aim is to make sure our security is guaranteed," Khamenei said according to state news agency IRNA. "We should be strong to prevent any war against the county. Being weak will encourage our enemies to attack Iran."
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"Since the [1979] revolution their [the US] aim was to stop us from having a strong military and a strong air force ... but look at us now. We even build planes. We have transformed their pressure to opportunity," Khamenei said.
Iran is marking the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, which toppled the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
Washington has reimposed crippling sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying it seeks to force Iran to negotiate to reach a wider deal.
Khamenei, who dismissed the US sanctions as a "criminal act", has banned Iranian officials from holding talks unless the United States returns to the deal and lifts all sanctions. He said Iran should distance its economy from dependence on oil exports.
Iran and the United States stormed to the edge of war in early January when Tehran's most prominent general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike on his convoy in Baghdad.
Tehran responded by launching missile attacks on US targets in Iraq.
Also on Sunday, Iran unveiled a new short-range missile called "Thunder" and launched a satellite named "Zafar" ("Victory") into space but it failed to reach orbit.
"The Zafar satellite will be placed in orbit today from Semnan at a speed of 7,400 kilometers," Iranian Minister of Information and Communications Technology Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said. He later tweeted that "I wanted to make you happy with good news but sometimes life does not go the way we want it to. The launch was not successful."
US officials expressed concern that the long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also be used to launch nuclear warheads. Tehran says it has never pursued the development of nuclear weapons.
State television said Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is in charge of the country's missile program, had unveiled the new missile, called Raad-500, Farsi for "Thunder."
According to available details, the 4th Generation missile has an improved aerodynamic design, composite casing rocket propulsion, and terminal precision capability recently demonstrated by Iran on its attack on the US Airbase of Al Assad in Iraq.
The new missile weighs some 3,320 kilograms and has a range of up to 500 kilometers (310 miles). The missile uses a separable maneuvering warhead that shapes the warhead stage trajectory after separation to improve impact accuracy.
