The recent comments by Iran’s president showing readiness to confront the US were hit back by President Donald Trump’s reply warning him of severe consequences by saying “the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered,” as the US intensifies its campaign against the Islamic republic.
“NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE,” Trump said on Twitter in a direct message to President Hassan Rouhani, who earlier Sunday warned Trump not to “play with the lion’s tail,” saying that conflict with Iran would be the “mother of all wars”.
The US president continued his words of war on Twitter:
“WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”
This reminds us the similarity between the verbal sparring of Trump exchanges with Iranian leader and last year’s war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before the two leaders met in a historic summit last month.
After his rapprochement with nuclear-armed North Korea, Trump has made Iran its prime and favorite target. He made these comments on Sunday night only after his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed to the Iranian diaspora in California. The Secretary said that Washington is not afraid to sanction top-ranking leaders of the “nightmare” Iranian regime.
This year’s May, Trump US out of an agreement with Tehran that was also signed by Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany. The agreement had lifted many sanctions from Iran’s in exchange for curbs on the nuclear program.
The agreement in 2015 was reached and signed so as to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear bomb development.
European allies are against US move to pull out, and show full support to the agreement and vowed to stay in it despite the fear of US penalties.
After Washington withdrew from the agreement, Pompeo unveiled US’s tougher stance by saying that the US is ready to lift all those sanctions from Iran if it puts an end to its ballistic missile program and does not intervene in regional conflicts from Yemen to Syria.
“You cannot provoke the Iranian people against their own security and interests,” Rouhani said in a televised speech Sunday, ahead of Pompeo’s address.
Rouhani reiterated his earlier threat that Iran could take the step of shutting down the strategic Strait of Hormuz considered a vital cargo shipping lane for international oil supplies.
“Peace with Iran would be the mother of all peace and war with Iran would be the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that the US does not show any commitment to agreements.
“As I have previously said, we cannot trust in the words of the United States and even in their signature, so negotiations with the United States are useless,” Khamenei told a gathering of Iranian diplomats in Tehran.
Pompeo recalled on Sunday that the US in the month of January had put sanctions on Sadeq Larijani for human rights violations. Larijani is the head of Iran’s judiciary.
“We weren’t afraid to tackle the regime at its highest level,” he said, also confirming that Washington wants all countries to reduce their imports of Iranian oil “as close to zero as possible” by November 4, or face American sanctions.
“There’s more to come,” Pompeo said of the US financial penalties.
“Regime leaders — especially those at the top of the IRGC and the Quds Force like Qasem Soleimani — must be made to feel painful consequences of their bad decision making,” said Pompeo, a longtime Iran hawk from the US. He was talking about Iran’s special forces and Revolutionary Guards.
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