Khamenei says won't waste time on 'brute' Trump's 'rants'
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – “I don’t want to waste time on answering the rants and whoppers of the brute US president,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday, in response to Donald Trump’s threat of renegotiating the nuclear deal.
The supreme leader of Iran said he would welcome Europe’s support for the deal but would “shred it to bits” if the US decertifies the deal.
On Oct. 15, President Trump announced a final decision about a strategy to stop Iran’s expansion of regional influence.
He also designated Iran’s most powerful security force, the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as a terrorist organization, as part of a broader US strategy on Iran.
The IRGC, which reportedly was involved in Iraq’s invasion of Kirkuk, has responded to Trump by threatening America.
“If the news is correct about the stupidity of the American government in considering the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist group, then the Revolutionary Guards will consider the American army to be like the Islamic State (IS) all around the world,” commander Mohammad Ali Jafar said.
He added that Americans would have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000-kilometer (1,250 miles) range of IRGC’s missiles.
At the UN in September, Trump labeled Iran “a corrupt dictatorship,” and called the nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama “an embarrassment.”
At a news conference last week, foreign ministry spokesperson Bahram Qasemi said, “We are hopeful that the United States does not make this strategic mistake,” the IRNA state news agency reported.
“If they do, Iran’s reaction would be firm, decisive, and crushing and the United States should bear all its consequences,” Qasemi explained.
US sanctions on the IRGC could affect conflicts in Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington both support warring parties that oppose IS.
In August, the US Congress overwhelmingly approved the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” which imposed new sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missiles program.
This prompted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to warn that Tehran would tear the nuclear agreement apart in “a matter of hours” if new sanctions were issued.
“If they want to go back to that experience, definitely in a short time – not weeks or months, but on the scale of hours and days – we will return to our previous situation very much stronger,” Rouhani declared.
Tensions have escalated between Tehran and Washington since Iran conducted missile tests and strikes. Each country accuses the other of violating the spirit of the deal.
In July, President Trump and his administration imposed new economic sanctions on Tehran.
The US government said the sanctions targeted 18 entities and people for backing “illicit Iranian actors or transnational criminal activity.”
The Trump administration added the sanctions were enforced over Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its “malign activities” in the Middle East which destabilized any “positive contributions” from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany