TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- A senior Iranian commander on Sunday warned Israel and the United States that the occupying regime cannot afford the costs of a confrontation with the Islamic Republic.
"At present, the development and deepening of Iran’s regional power has made any decision to confront the Islamic Republic difficult, which will be followed by unimaginable costs,” Maj.-Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, who commands the Khatam al Anbia Central Headquarters, was quoted by Iran’s Fars News as saying.
 "Today, the Zionist regime has, more than the past, understood the Islamic Republic of Iran’s power in the region and will avoid testing it because it cannot manage confrontation against Iran and cannot bear its costs,” he added.
The Khatam al Anbia is considered as one of the most prestigious and highest operation command centers that played a significant role in the Iran-Iraq war by coordinating operations between the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and army operation command centers.
According to a senior IRGC official, Tehran has increased its missile production threefold after the government, parliament and other Iranian officials had agreed on the need for ground-to-ground missiles.
"In the past, we had to do a lot of explaining to various bodies for our actions, but it’s not like that anymore,” Brig.-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the IRGC’s aerospace division, has said.
The Zionist regime and the U.S. are currently holding one of their largest drills, with some 2,500 American troops participating alongside a similar number of Israeli troops in the Juniper Cobra 2018 exercises, simulating large-scale missile barrages.
Washington and Tel Aviv have signed an agreement which would see the U.S. come to assist Israel in times of war.
Head of Israel’s aerial defense division Brig.-Gen Zvika Haimovitch said, "I am sure once the order comes we will find here U.S. troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team to defend” the occupying regime, the Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday.
Almost a month has passed since the drama in the skies of Syria, when Israel bombed targets in Syrian territory before at least one of its F-16s was shot down by the Syrian anti-aircraft fire.
Since then, Syria has not reported a single Zionist aerial attack on arms convoys, missile warehouses or army bases, unlike reports that had been quite frequent in the last five years before the incident.
The decided advantage of the pro-Assad axis in the Syria war gives its forces security and bolsters their drive to win, the Israeli daily Haaretz wrote on Sunday.
The paper touched on Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech in Washington last week, where he said, "We must stop Iran. We will stop Iran.”
"From Israel’s perspective, even though the stated intention is to foil Iran’s plans in Syria and Lebanon, neither Netanyahu nor Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman nor the top military brass aspire to a broad confrontation whose end cannot be foretold,” it wrote.
Haaretz said Israeli leaders had been turning to the U.S. and Europe to pressure Iran with its nuclear program and the country’s missile capabilities.
"Talking with U.S. President Donald Trump this week, Netanyahu again pressed him to declare that America would abandon the nuclear agreement in May.
"Meanwhile the EU wants to lead an initiative enforcing monitoring in Iran and restrictions on its missile program, as wells as its dissemination of technology among terrorist and guerrilla groups in the region.
"These are goals marked for the years to come, based on the understanding that the battle with Iran will slog on for years and that the Vienna agreement provided, at best, a hiatus, not a comprehensive solution,” the paper said.