‘Iranians Become More United in Face of U.S. Bullying’

Date: 02 July 2019 - 22:04

News ID: ۶۷۶۵۸

DUBAI (Dispatches) – U.S. President Donald Trump should realize that Iranians become more united when bullied, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Tuesday in remarks broadcast live on state television.
"Mr. Trump should understand that when one uses bullying language against a civilized nation, they become more united,” Larijani said. U.S. threats had united political factions in Iran, he added.
Larijani made the remarks at a Tuesday ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of the downing of an Iranian passenger plane by a US Navy guided-missile cruiser in the Persian Gulf waters.
Larijani enumerated Washington’s "calculation mistakes” in dealing with Iran over the past years, including downing in 1988 the passenger plane with 290 people on board, designing a coup in 1953 against the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and supporting ex-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his regime’s eight-year war on Iran.
"The problem with Americans is that they are not well familiar with the Middle East and the Iranian nation, and imagine if they send a handful of warships to the region, they can break the will of the nation, but Iranians showed that they have a united resolve,” he said.
Larijani also denounced the anti-Iran policies adopted by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, adding that experts with different viewpoints inside Iran have today come to the conclusion that America "harbors enmity” towards the Islamic Republic.
"This turned into a point of unity (among Iranians) and united everyone in the idea that we must stand our ground,” he added. "Trump should realize that when he speaks to a civilized nation with bullying language, that nation strengthens its unity.”
Recently, the U.S. has taken a quasi-warlike posture against Iran and stepped up its provocative military moves in the Middle East.
In May, Washington dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group, a bomber task force, and an amphibious assault ship to the Persian Gulf, citing an alleged Iranian threat.
Meanwhile, retired four-star Army general Jack Keane "spooks" U.S. President Donald Trump out of attacking Iran, according to a report.
Keane’s comments on the evening of June 20 regarding how to respond to Iran’s downing of a US drone dissuaded Trump from an Iran attack, according to sources close to the president.
The comments on Trump's favorite TV news channel made a profound impact on the president, who was "spooked”, according to a report published by Politico on Tuesday which cited two sources briefed on the president's reaction.
Keane, who was making his second appearance of the day on the Fox News Channel, said that Trump, who had speculated earlier in the day that the Iranian action might have been a fluke rather than a deliberate provocation, had a point.
"Our viewers may have forgotten, but during the tanker war in the late ‘80s when Reagan did take some action, we actually made a mistake,” Keane said, referring to President Ronald Reagan. "We had a USS warship shoot down an Iranian airliner in Iranian airspace. Two-hundred ninety people killed. Sixty-six of them were children," claimed the 76-year-old former Army vice chief of staff.
Keane added, "we made a horrific mistake!”