Iran flexed its military muscles yesterday by test-firing up to nine missiles near the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strip of water through which much of the world’s oil supplies pass.

The show of force was intended to “demonstrate our resolve and might against enemies” — including the United States and Israel — “who in recent weeks have threatened Iran with harsh language,” according to General Hossein Salami, the air force commander of the Revolutionary Guards.

Israel and most US military bases across the Middle East would be within striking distance of some of the missiles fired, including the ballistic Shahab-3. Iran has repeatedly threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if it is attacked.

“Our hands are always on the trigger and our missiles are ready for launch,” General Salami said.

The Pentagon reacted cautiously, with sources describing the exercises as “troop training” similar to those Iran staged two years ago. But Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, seized upon the news to deliver a jab at Russia, which reiterated its opposition this week to US plans for missile defences in Eastern Europe.

Speaking in Bulgaria, she said that anyone who thought the threat from Tehran was imaginary “perhaps ought to talk to the Iranians about their claims”.

Although President Bush hopes that tougher sanctions will weaken Iran’s defiance of the United Nations over its uranium enrichment programme, Israel has continued to threaten an airstrike unless Tehran ceases work that it fears will lead to the production of a nuclear weapon.

Last month Israeli warplanes flew over the eastern Mediterranean in what US officials described as a possible rehearsal for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Shaul Mofaz, an Israeli minister, said recently that his country would have no choice but to attack if Iran continued to enrich uranium.

Diplomats in Washington believe that the Iranian leadership is hoping — possibly in vain — that the US election will signal a decisive shift in relations with the West. Britain is among the European countries understood to be concerned that Barack Obama’s promise to hold unconditional talks with Iran risks weakening the tough stance on economic sanctions they have adopted at the urging of the White House.

Mr Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, has strengthened his language towards Tehran. Yesterday he said: “Israel has the right to protect itself from serious threats — and Iran is a serious threat.”

He suggested that further work had to be done with European allies, as well as Russia and China, to persuade them of the need for increasingly stringent economic sanctions as well as incentives to encourage Iran to change. He said that this would be combined with “the type of direct diplomacy that can lead \ to standing down on issues like nuclear weapons”.

John McCain, the Republican nominee, suggested that his rival’s promise of direct talks would be a unilateral concession that threatened to damage Western unity on Iran. The military exercises yesterday had underlined the dangers Iran “poses to its neighbours and to the wider region, especially Israel”.

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