NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran has warned that it plans to intervene in the Middle East, including in the affairs of such neighbors as Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the first such high-level assertion, a leading Islamic military commander has placed the United States on notice that Iran reserves the right to intervene in the Middle East, Gulf and Central Asia. The commander said Iran would also seek to control events across the border in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Iran is in the center of three strategic and sensitive regions -- the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus ," Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said. "The Islamic republic, for this reason, can play a decisive role in regional political, economic, cultural and security arrangements."

Safavi outlined Iran's sphere of influence in an address designed to challenge U.S. policy. The IRGC commander said the United States must recognize Iran 's dominant role in the Gulf and warned that it would not be ignored in major regional developments.