TEHRAN, Feb 3 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush`s attack on Iran as the world`s primary sponsor of terror and his call for freedom for its people has further enflamed tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemies in Washington.
Bush`s State of the Union address was the latest US broadside in an increasingly bellicose war of words over Iran`s nuclear programme, which Washington claims is a cover for efforts to build an atomic bomb.
The US president, who three years ago said Iran was part of an "axis of evil" alongside Saddam Hussein`s Iraq and North Korea, has already hinted at possible military action to forestall Tehran`s nuclear activities.
In his address on Wednesday, Bush charged that Iran "remains the world`s primary state sponsor of terror -- pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve".
"To the Iranian people, I say tonight: As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you," he said.
Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded by saying Bush was the fifth US president since Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s who "wants to destroy the Islamic republic, but he will fail" as the others did.
"The United States is one of the heads of the dragon of world oppression... the brains of which are the Zionist and non-Zionist companies and capitalists who elected Bush to guarantee their interests," he said on state television.
"Today the Iranian people and the Islamic republic are the target of aggression by the oppressors in the world... who are using all means to try to stop the Iranian people from progressing and to destroy them."
For his part, foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected Bush`s call as misguided and ignorant of the Islamic republic`s history.
"Mr Bush has forgotten that the great Iranian people, through the Islamic revolution 26 years ago, put an end to the dominant influence and presence of the United States in Iran," he was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
Asefi said the US president was "closing his eyes to the realities of the Islamic republic with its deep-rooted freedom and democracy".
Washington -- decried in Iran as the Great Satan -- cut diplomatic relations with Tehran shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The two powers have engaged in increasingly barbed exchanges, and Iranian leaders have urged the population to turn out in force for mass anti-US demonstrations on February 10 to mark the 26th anniversary of the revolution.
Washington has raised the threat of military action although the European Union, including top US ally Britain, is negotiating with Iranian officials over the nuclear programme.
Last month, Bush said he could not rule out using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans. US Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran was "right at the top of the list" of global trouble spots.
Iran -- which has in turn warned the United States it would be making a massive error if it attacked -- has agreed to a temporary freeze on uranium enrichment as part of the negotiations with France, Germany and Britain in return for possible economic, political and technological aid.
Uranium enriched to low levels using gas centrifuges can be used for fuel, but highly enriched uranium can be used to make atomic bombs.
Iran insists that its activities are for peaceful purposes and has long denied any ambitions to make nuclear weapons, saying it has the right to enrich uranium under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But even Brussels has hardened its stance, calling on Tehran to commit itself to abandoning the process completely.
In Geneva this month, Britain, France and Germany told Iran that nothing short of full cessation and dismantling fuel cycle efforts would provide the guarantees needed to prove the peaceful nature of the nuclear programme.
A senior Pentagon official said Tuesday that Washington hoped diplomatic efforts would succeed in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear activities.
Douglas Feith urged Tehran to follow the example of Libya, which agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programme.

02/03/2005 20:05 GMT - AFP