div class=”story-para”Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Nov. 16 that the U.S. is incapable of launching a military strike against Iran but would “regret” an attack if it carried one out./div div class=”story-para” “America is today incapable of staging a military strike against Iran for several reasons,” Ahmadinejad told Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel in an interview, according to an Arabic voice-over of his remarks in Farsi./div div class=”story-para” The ground is not prepared for a strike in either economic, political or military terms, he said./div div class=”story-para” “And of course, they know full well that the Iranian people’s response [to any attack] will be harsh, and they will regret it,” Ahmadinejad said./div div class=”story-para” “In practice, then, they do not want to launch a strike against Iran. They are agitating and applying pressure on [U.N.] Security Council members in order to deceive and extricate themselves from the impasse in which they are,” he added./div div class=”story-para” U.S. Democratic lawmakers Nov. 16 warned the Bush administration was “beating the drums for war” with Iran, and vowed to wield constitutional powers to thwart any military strike./div div class=”story-para” Their comments came as U.S. President Bush fired off a fresh warning that international pressure would grow on the Islamic Republic, unless Tehran agreed to suspend enriching uranium./div div class=”story-para” Washington accuses Tehran of using its nuclear program as cover for a drive to develop an atomic bomb, a charge Iran strongly denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity./div