Trump Hits Back at Iran 'War' Talk

President Donald Trump on Sunday hit back at bellicose comments by Iran's president, warning him of consequences "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, writing his entire message in capital letters, continued his riposte: "WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!"

The high-stakes verbal sparring is reminiscent of the exchanges Trump had last year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, before the two leaders met in a historic summit last month.

Trump has made Iran a favorite target since his rapprochement with nuclear-armed North Korea. His comments Sunday night came after his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a major address to the Iranian diaspora in California, said Washington is not afraid to sanction top-ranking leaders of the "nightmare" Iranian regime.

Trump in May pulled the US out of a hard-won agreement with Tehran, also signed by Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, which lifted sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program.

The 2015 agreement was in response to fears that Iran was developing a nuclear bomb.

European allies maintain their support for the deal and have vowed to stay in it, though their businesses fear US penalties.

Following Washington's pullout Pompeo unveiled Washington's tougher line under which, he said, the US would lift its new sanctions if Iran ended its ballistic missile program and interventions 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. 

'More to Come'

Rouhani repeated his warning that Iran could shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital 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. 

On Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US does not abide by 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 on Sunday noted that the US in January had already sanctioned Sadeq Larijani, the head of Iran's judiciary, for human rights violations.

"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. He was referring to Iran's special forces and Revolutionary Guards.

Roundly applauded by his audience, Pompeo affirmed support by Washington for protesters in the Islamic republic.

"The regime in Iran has been a nightmare for the Iranian people," he said.

Washington's top diplomat announced an intensified American propaganda campaign, with the launch of a multimedia channel with 24-hour coverage on television, radio, and social media.

This will ensure that "ordinary Iranians inside Iran and around the globe can know that America stands with them," he said.

Regularly suspected of favoring regime change in Iran, Pompeo refused to distinguish between moderates and radicals at the heart of the Islamic republic.

"Our hope is that ultimately the regime will make meaningful changes in its behavior both inside Iran and globally," he said.

Photo Credit: Wikicommons

Pompeo to Urge Iranians Abroad to 'Support' Anti-Regime Protests

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans on Sunday to urge members of the Iranian diaspora to "support" protesters in Iran, as the Trump administration hints at a desire for regime change in Tehran after turning its back on the Iranian nuclear accord. 

President Donald Trump—who has made the Islamic republic a favorite target since his unexpected rapprochement with North Korea—decided on May 8 to restore all the sanctions that had been lifted as part of the multi-nation agreement aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Following the US withdrawal that stunned even Washington's closest European allies, Pompeo on May 21 unveiled a "new strategy" intended to force Iran to yield to a dozen stringent demands or else face the "strongest sanctions in history."  

The next US step is due at 6:00 pm Sunday (0100 GMT Monday) in the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California, when the secretary of state delivers a speech entitled "Supporting Iranian Voices."

With the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution of 1979 a year away, Pompeo plans to retrace "40 years of stealing from the Iranian people, the terrorism they have committed around the region, the brutal repression at home" as well as the "religious persecution" there, a senior State Department official told reporters ahead of the speech.

The venue for Pompeo's address is significant, the official noted: some 250,000 Iranian-Americans live in Southern California.   

"He will be exposing some of the corruption" of a "kleptocratic regime," the diplomat told reporters. "The regime has prioritized its ideological agenda over the welfare of the Iranian people."

'Demands For a Better Life'

Pompeo launched his campaign against Iran on Twitter last month, saying the government in Tehran and the Revolutionary Guards—the regime's elite armed
corps—had "plundered the country's wealth" in proxy wars "while Iranian families struggle."

The Trump administration's strategy appears simple: to exploit the already growing tensions within Iranian society that are being exacerbated by renewed US sanctions that have forced some foreign firms to leave.  

There have been a series of anti-government protests in Iran in recent months, prompted by an array of different issues and concerns.

The State Department briefer said Pompeo plans to support "the legitimate demands of the Iranian people, especially their economic demands for a better life."

But how far will he and the administration go?

"That's the key question," Behnam Ben Taleblu of the conservative pressure group Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told AFP. "Pompeo and the administration can do more than just rhetorical support to the Iranian protester."

How far will the US go?

Several Iranian dissidents have written to Pompeo to urge him to re-establish punitive measures against the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting network, which they accuse of abetting human rights violations.  

Word of Pompeo's planned speech has fanned speculation on Washington's precise intentions.

The State Department insists that the US seeks merely a "change in behavior" by the regime.

But some senior members of the Trump administration.—notably national security advisor John Bolton.—have made it clear in the past that they would like to see the Tehran regime topple, and Pompeo himself said in May that "the Iranian people get to choose for themselves the kind of leadership they want."

To Behnam Ben Taleblu, "genuine regime change can only come from inside." 

With an upsurge of "Iranians of all different social classes protesting," he said, the Trump administration will have to decide whether it wants to "support elements that actually want to change the regime."

Diplomats and experts in Washington are divided as to whether the protests and social tensions within Iran pose a true threat to the Islamic republic. 

Nor is there agreement on what it would actually mean should the Iranian regime fall—but some find that uncertainty deeply worrying.

"The more likely result of regime collapse would be a military coup in the name of restoring order, led by the man Washington's Iran hawks fear the most: Gen. Qasem Suleimani," the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, according to Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"Exerting maximum pressure on Iran could bring about America's worst nightmare," he added on Twitter.

Photo Credit: Wikicommons

Iran's Supreme Leader Warns Europe of Nuclear 'Dream'

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned European leaders against their "dream" of Tehran continuing to curb its nuclear programme while finding itself under new economic sanctions.

"From some European countries we get the message that they expect the Iranian people to both tolerate the sanctions, deal with the sanctions, and go along with them and give up our nuclear energy activities and continue with the restrictions," he told an audience in a Tehran suburb.

"I would tell these countries that they should be aware that this is a dream that will never come true."

Khamenei was speaking nearly a month after President Donald Trump announced the United States was pulling out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal.

The remaining partners—Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia—have scrambled to save the 2015 accord as the US readies to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

"The people of Iran and the government of Iran will never tolerate both suffering from sanctions and nuclear restrictions," said Khamenei.

"This will never happen," he said during a ceremony to mark the 29th anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Iran deal paved the way for the partial lifting of international sanctions against the country, in exchange for Tehran curbing its nuclear program for a number of years.

Khamenei and various Iranian political figures have already warned that Iran could leave the agreement if it no longer receives the economic benefits it signed up for.

Late last month the supreme leader outlined Iran's demands for it to stay in the nuclear deal.

But the remaining backers of the accord have limited power to protect Iran's economic interests in the face of US sanctions, with Trump showing little inclination to spare EU companies.

Shortly after Khamenei's speech, French automaker PSA announced it was pulling out of two joint ventures to sell its cars in Iran owing to the US sanctions.

Last week the chief executive of French oil giant Total—a symbol of foreign companies' return to Iran after 2015—said the chances of winning sanctions exemptions were "very slim."

Photo Credit: Khamenei.ir