IRGC Chief Urges US Not to Repeat Failed Policies
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Major General Hossein Salami reminded the US that its strategies on Iran have ended in failure, calling on Washington not to repeat the same mistakes.
“You have failed in (exerting pressure) on the Iranian nation,” the top commander said Monday, addressing a ceremony in Bandar Abbas in which the IRGC Navy took delivery of 340 combat speedboats for operations in Iran’s southern waters.
“Don’t repeat your failed policies and throw away the lens through which you have looked at the Iranian nation,” he said.
He added that Iran has successfully withstood the sanctions and their outcomes and defeated their architects, referring to the advances in the country’s defense industry, including the speedboats delivered today, as one of the achievements made under the sanctions.
The speedboats, co-produced by the IRGC Navy and the Defense Ministry, are capable of carrying various types of rockets to attack enemy targets.
They will be used in missions in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, as well as in the Caspian Sea.
Under his signature “maximum pressure” policy against Iran, former US president Donald Trump withdrew Washington from the JCPOA and restored the economic sanctions that the deal had removed.
The US also began threatening third countries with “secondary sanctions” if they violated the American bans.
Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has signaled a willingness to rejoin the JCPOA, which was inked when he was vice president. However, his foreign policy team has said Iran should take the first step by coming back into "full compliance" with the deal, a condition Tehran says is unacceptable.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said on Sunday Iran will retrace its nuclear countermeasures once the United States lifts its sanctions in a manner that could be verifiable by Tehran.
“Iran will return to its JCOPA obligations once the US fully lifts its sanctions in action and not in words or on paper, and once the sanction relief is verified by Iran,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.
“The Americans and the Europeans have no right to set any conditions (of their own) as they violated their JCPOA commitments,” the Leader said, adding that Iran would pay no heed to the “idle talk” of some “undeserving” American and European officials in this regard.
“They initially put some of the sanctions in abeyance for a brief period, but then reimposed and even intensified them,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in reference to Washington and its allies’ initial limited compliance with the JCPOA. Therefore, they have no right to come up with any conditions, the Leader reiterated.
Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to Washington’s past failures to hurt Iran’s Islamic establishment as one of its numerous miscalculations concerning the country.
The Leader particularly recalled Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton’s failed prediction that Washington would successfully enable a “regime change" in Iran by early 2019.
“One of those very first-class idiots had said two years ago that they would be celebrating the New Year in Tehran in January 2019,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted.
“Now, that person has entered the dustbin of history and his boss (Trump) has been kicked out of the White House in a humiliating manner. By God’s grace, though, the Islamic Republic still stands tall,” the Leader noted.
Ayatollah Khamenei named the US support for the riots that broke out in Iran in 2009 as another instance of Washington’s miscalculations in its efforts to bring about the collapse of the Islamic Republic.
