The newly inaugurated US Republican President Donald Trump promised to adopt a tough line on Iran as he campaigned for the White House.
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“We actually thank this new president [Trump]!”
“Iranians are not afraid of threats”, Ayatollah Khamenei said. Tehran, meanwhile, dismisses the claim and says the test didn’t breach the 2015 United Nations resolution.
“Ayatollah Khamenei underlined during presidential elections in 2013 that voting was a civil duty and even those who does not believe in the Establishment should come to the polls for the sake of their country”, Rouhani said, “Leader also proposed “heroic leniency” which helped us achieve success in nuclear negotiations”. Trump’s sentiments were shortly echoed by U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis.
“I believe Trump may try to renegotiate” the deal, but “clearly, neither Iran, nor the Europeans or the global community, will accept new negotiations”, Zarif told Ettelaat, an Iranian newspaper, in an interview published Tuesday. On Monday, Iranian official Mojtaba Zonour warned that the Islamic Republic could destroy the American military force in nearby Bahrain if it were threatened and said Iranian missiles could reach Tel Aviv within seven minutes. It should worry Iran that Trump doesn’t make empty promises, if the immigration order is any indication of that.
“A credible threat of military force is an essential tool for persuading Iran to end its aggressive, unsafe nuclear-weapons-related ballistic missile program and worldwide terrorist activities”, Klein wrote.
“What were seeing here is hostile action, belligerent action being supported by or taken by the Iranians”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote last week on Twitter that his country is unfazed by US threats. The deal, viscerally opposed by Israel, allowed Iran to mend ties with European countries, boost its oil production and trade with other countries, thereby minimising the pain its people had suffered due to economic sanctions.
According to Reuters, the Trump administration is seeking to pressure Iran into renegotiating key provisions of the agreement like demanding access to United Nations nuclear inspectors to Iranian military sites and removing so-called “sunset” terms, which make restrictions on the Iranian nuclear program less severe after 10 years, and again after 15 years.
He added that the USA response to Iran’s missile tests was “a pretext to show their animosity towards us; we are making round-the-clock efforts to defend our country’s security”.
The UK was part of the Iran nuclear agreement, which was finalized under former Prime Minister David Cameron and President Barack Obama.
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It could allow Trump to tackle not only Iran but also Saudi Arabia on a fundamental issue that drives volatility, sectarianism and political violence in the Muslim world in general and Iranian and Saudi policies specifically: the rise of supremacist, intolerant, anti-pluralistic ultra-conservatism. Tackling symptoms or only specific players rather than root causes threatens to fuel the fire rather than extinguish it.
