WarSclerotic

Iran denied the charges and expressed outrage at the accusations.

In addition to prosecuting the men, President Obama told reporters that the United State would continue “to apply the toughest sanctions and continue to mobilize the international community to make sure that Iran is further and further isolated and pays a price for this kind of behavior.”

American officials say they believe Iran hoped that such an attack would be blamed on al-Qaeda. That, in turn, would strike at two of Iran’s chief enemies: the United States and Saudi Arabia.

“Now, we don’t take any options off the table in terms of how we operate with Iran, but what you can expect is that we will continue to apply the sorts of pressure that will have a direct impact on the Iranian government until it makes a better choice in terms of how it’s going to interact with the rest of the international community,” President Obama said.

“I have to emphasize that this plot was not simply directed at the United States of America. This is a plot that was directed against the Saudi ambassador,” the president added.

“There’s a great similarity between how Iran operates and how North Korea operates, a willingness on their part to break international rules, to flout international norms, to not live up to their own commitments. And each time they do that, the United States will join with its partners and allies in making sure that they pay a price,” he added at a news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

For his part, Lee said he was “deeply shocked” by the alleged assassination plot, according to The Associated Press.

“I and the Korean people strongly condemn all forms of terrorism,” the South Korean leader said. “Our two countries are working to bring peace and stability around the world.”

Obama however said he would leave it to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who filed an indictment against two alleged plotters this week, to lay out the details of the alleged terror scheme.

He declined to answer a question about whether the top levels of the government in Tehran were involved in the planning, AFP reported.

The indictment charged that the plot, involving an unnamed Mexican drugs cartel, was the work of senior members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds force, based on testimony given by one of the Iranians who was in US custody.

The other Iranian, said to be a member of the Quds Force, was at large and believed to have left the United States, according to US authorities.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader said Thursday that the West is trying but failing to instill “Iranophobia.” His remarks appeared to be prompted by, but did not directly address, U.S. allegations of the thwarted Tehran-sponsored assassination plot.

“The repeat of ineffective and stupid methods by hapless and distracted policymakers in the West (to spread) Iranophobia will again bear no result,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in an army base in the western city of Kermanshah, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“They will once again taste failure’s bitterness,” he said.

Khamenei added that Iran’s arch-foe, the United States, was caught in a “quagmire” of its own creation because of its “wrong policies and performance.”

Khamenei did not explicitly respond to U.S. allegations that Iranian government officials were behind a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington.