The US threat to assemble a ‘coalition of the willing’ against Iran outside the UN if the security council fails to take action has convinced many Iranians that the nuclear issue is just the latest stage in a struggle between Washington and Tehran dating back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

“All the signs and information show Iran and America are about to grab each other by the scruff of the neck,” Mohsen Rezaei, the former Revolutionary Guards commander and an influential fundamentalist, told a conference on Tuesday evening.