Iran says U.S. is too stretched to attack it

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has told a German magazine that the United States has too many problems in Iraq to become involved in armed conflict with Iran.

Military action is sometimes discussed in Washington as an option in trying to derail what it sees as Iran's drive to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States "is not in a position to get into a new military conflict", Mottaki was quoted as saying in an excerpt of an interview to be published in Focus magazine.

"170,000 American soldiers can guarantee neither their own safety nor the security of Iraq," he said.

Iran says U.S. is too stretched to attack it. Reuters