Iran tests missile as election race starts

Wed May 20, 2009 3:01pm EDT
By Zahra Hosseinian and Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday Iran had tested a missile that defense analysts say could hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, a move likely to fuel Western concern about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Washington voiced concern after Ahmadinejad announced the test on the same day campaigning for the Iran's June 12 presidential election officially started.
U.S. President Barack Obama "has long been concerned" by any development in Iran's missile program, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. A U.S. official said the test was a "step in the wrong direction".
One Western expert saw the missile test as Iran's response to the Israeli prime minister's U.S. visit this week.
Coming a day after Iran's supreme leader accused the United States of promoting terrorism, the test was a further disappointment for the Obama administration, which is seeking rapprochement with Iran after three decades of mutual mistrust.
"Iran just keeps going in the wrong direction. We want them to engage with us, to talk about how we can make the region more stable. This is just a step in the wrong direction," the U.S. official said.
U.S. patience is "not infinite", the official added.
The United States and its allies suspect the Islamic Republic is seeking to build nuclear bombs, a charge Tehran denies, but Obama has offered a new beginning of diplomatic engagement with Iran if it "unclenches its fist."
A U.S. defense official confirmed the launch, although Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to say whether the U.S. military had any evidence of an Iranian missile test.
AT CROSSROADS
"Our concerns are obviously based on their nuclear ambitions and the implications that long- and medium-range missiles have with respect to that," Whitman told reporters. "Iran is at a bit of a crossroads. They have a choice to make.
"They can either continue on this path of continued destabilization of the region or they can decide that they want to pursue relationships with countries in the region and the United States that are more normalized," he said.
In Rome, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini canceled a trip to Iran after Tehran demanded he meet Ahmadinejad in the same northern Iranian province where the missile launch took place, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.
He would have been the most senior official from a European government to visit since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.
Ahmadinejad, whose moderate challengers in the June 12 vote accuse him of isolating Iran with his anti-Western speeches, said the country had the power to send any attacker "to hell." Continued...