Chief of Staff and IRGC:

U.S. Has No Courage for Confrontation With Iran

Date: 23 May 2018 - 21:09

News ID: ۵۳۳۲۲

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- The chief of staff of Iran's armed forces dismissed on Wednesday U.S. demands for Tehran to curb its influence in the region, and said it would not seek permission from any country to develop defense capabilities.
"Iranian armed forces are now, thanks to God, more prepared than ever and will not wait for the permission or approval of any power to develop defense capabilities," Maj. Gen. Muhammad Baqeri said.
His statement came two days after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington would impose "the strongest sanctions in history" if Tehran did not curb its regional influence and limit its missile program.
Two weeks earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran that had lifted sanctions on the Islamic Republic in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program.
Baqeri called U.S. leaders "disloyal, cruel, criminal, isolated, angry, corrupt, and on the Zionist regime's payroll", and said Washington did not have the courage for a military confrontation with Tehran.
"This enemy (the United States) does not have the courage for military confrontation and face-to-face war with Iran, but it's trying to put economic and mental pressures on the Iranian nation," he added.
Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also warned that the U.S. government would be defeated like Iraq's deposed leader Saddam Hussein if it attacks Iran.
"The American leaders ... have got this message that if they attack Iran, they will encounter a fate similar to that of Saddam Hussein," the IRGC said in a statement.
Iran's Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said Pompeo had repeated old allegations against Tehran "only with a stronger and more indecent tone".
"Mr Pompeo and other U.S. officials in the current administration are prisoners of their wrong illusions, prisoners of their past and have been taken hostage by corrupt pressure groups," he told state television.
In Paris, France's foreign minister said the U.S. decision to scrap the Iran nuclear deal and implement a tough strategy on the country would endanger the region.
"We disagree with the method because this collection of sanctions which will be set up against Iran will not enable dialogue and, on the contrary, it will reinforce the conservatives and weaken President Rouhani. This posture risks endangering the region more," Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter radio.
He said Paris would continue to implement the agreement even if it did agree with the United States that Iran's ballistic missile activity and regional role needed to be curbed.
Deputy foreign ministers of the remaining parties to the accord - Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia - will meet their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Vienna.
The meeting will assess what can be done to keep the deal and circumvent extraterritorial American sanctions that are impacting foreign business appetite for Iran.