ST. PETERSBURG, April 27 (RIA Novosti) - Populist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, said Thursday that war would be declared on Iran in 2006.
"A [military] operation will start in Iran this year," said Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the longtime enfant terrible of Russian politics, who has previously made appeals to "wash Russian soldiers' boots in the Indian ocean," threatened to seize Alaska from the United States, and use giant fans to blow nuclear waste into the Baltic states.
A war against the Islamic Republic, which has defied international demands to halt nuclear research, would start with air raids, followed by land operations, Zhirinovsky said, without clarifying. He also suggested that international troops sent into mountainous Iran would suffer greater losses than coalition troops did in Iraq.
The U.S. and some European countries have not ruled out the use of force against the Islamic Republic, which they suspect of attempting to build nuclear weapons. But they have repeatedly said a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis would be preferable.
Tehran has dismissed accusations it is trying to get the bomb, and insisted it is conducting peaceful nuclear research allowed under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
