TEHRAN -- President Ebrahim Raisi said Wednesday the United States’ maximum pressure policy against the Islamic Republic has failed in the face of Iran’s maximum resistance campaign.
Raisi made the remarks during a visit to the mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini, on the occasion of the 43rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
He said even U.S. officials themselves have admitted to the failure of the maximum pressure policy, which was initiated by former U.S. president Donald Trump in 2018 and has been maintained under the new administration of Joe Biden.
“When the Americans officially acknowledge that they have failed with their maximum pressure, an ignominious failure, this is a victory for the Iranian nation,” the Iranian president stated.
“Today, the nation’s maximum resistance to seditions and sanctions has borne fruit and the maximum pressure has failed,” he added.
Back in 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposed the anti-Iran sanctions that were lifted under the accord while piling on with new ones. He said he was adopting a “maximum pressure” policy to force Tehran to negotiate a new deal.
According to Raisi, whenever Iran resisted, including during Iraq’s imposed war and other conspiracies hatched against the country, “divine victory accompanied us.”
He said every success that has been attained in the country was made possible only where people were enabled.
“Wherever we succeeded, it was because we had handed the field over to the people, and wherever we did not define a significant presence for the people, we did not succeed,” the president said.
Raisi touched on the ideals of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, saying relying on God and engaging people were two basic principles invoked by the “great reformer of the century” to lead the Iranian nation toward the Revolution.
“Imam’s advice to support people and hut-dwellers was a truth and was drawn from a belief,” he noted.
“Attending to people is a principle for all administrations, [including] our administration … We need to take lessons from the Imam’s political view,” Raisi added.