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Tehran Reacts to Trump with Anger and Ridicule

September 20, 2017
IranWire
4 min read
Tehran Reacts to Trump with Anger and Ridicule

Iranian officials reacted with a mixture of anger and ridicule to President Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 19, in which he referred to Iran as “corrupt” and dismissed the nuclear deal as an “embarrassment.”

Following the speech, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted: “Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times, not the 21st Century UN.”

“Unworthy of a reply,” he tweeted. “Fake empathy for Iranians fools no one.” 

And yet Zarif did reply. “Trump’s shameless and ignorant remarks, in which he ignored Iran’s fight against terrorism, displays his lack of knowledge and unawareness,” Zarif told Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency, as reported by Reuters.

Zarif also accused the United States of supporting dictatorships in the Middle East and terrorist groups.

Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, called Trump’s attitude “naïve” and said that, with his poor understanding of international law, Trump makes a mockery of the negotiation process. Trump, he said, is still in a presidential campaign mode.

General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, criticized Trump’s “repetitions” and said his comments showed the “true face” of the American government. He added that the Americans have suffered “successive” and “crushing” defeats in the Middle East at the hands of Iran, and that in the coming months they would receive “more painful” responses. The general did not clarify whether these “responses” would be military or diplomatic, but he called on President Rouhani to give Trump a “decisive, clear and revolutionary” answer in his speech to the UN General Assembly on September 20.

Aladdin Broujerdi, the head of Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affair Committee, described Trump’s speech as “foolish.”

 He called the US government “a symbol of terrorism and spreading violence around the world” and added that, under Trump, the US has become “a symbol of irresponsibility” in the diplomatic arena.“Trump showed his enmity towards the independent system of the Islamic Republic,” Broujerdi said, “but he must understand that he will take the wish of interfering in Iran to his grave.”

 

“Israel Wrote the Speech”

Hessameddin Ashena, President Rouhani’s advisor, claimed that supporters of Israel and the opposition group the People’s Mojahedin Organization had a major role in drafting Trump’s speech which, he said, “had no trace of diplomacy, of the State Department or of the conventional wisdom of American diplomats.”

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the influential Expediency Council, had a similar reaction. “It appears that Trump’s speech was drafted by [the Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu.” And  Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Khamenei’s advisor and a member of the Expediency Council, tweeted: “If Trump portrays Iran this way, then how can he make $400 billion arms deals with the countries in the region?”

General Masoud Jazayeri, spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces, said: “We will not leave the field because of such cowboy shouts, and Trump cannot bluff Iran into making concessions.”

In the coming days, Iranian officials will no doubt reiterate these and similar statements. At the same time, Rouhani’s government officials must be happy that Trump has called the nuclear agreement “an embarrassment” for the US. Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist member of parliament and a supporter of President Rouhani, taunted critics of the nuclear agreement by tweeting that they and Trump think alike and believe the agreement to be a bad deal.

Nevertheless, Rouhani’s supporters will be worried that uncertainty about the implementation of the nuclear agreement will mean the government could face further problems — especially with the economy.

The hardliner daily newspaper Kayhan said the public would expect Rouhani to respond to Trump’s speech to the General Assembly, adding that the “government must respond decisively to the violation of the nuclear agreement by the US.”

Fear of Renegotiation

Of course, Keyhan would love nothing more than for Iran to abandon the nuclear agreement — the same thing Trump says he wants. But the critics are more worried about new US-Iran negotiations than they are about the repeal of the agreement. “We have no right to renegotiate,” wrote former diplomat Naser Nobari, who represents opponents who believe Trump is not concerned with pressuring Iran to leave the agreement, but that he wants a renegotiate the deal instead. Officials who actually have a deciding say in the nuclear issue — President Rouhani, Foreign Minister Zarif and Ali Akbar Velayati, Khamenei’s advisor for international affairs — have said they will not renegotiate.

“The enemy should know that if bullying and thuggish behavior works elsewhere, it will not work in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Ayatollah Khamenei told a group of students in a speech on September 17. “The Americans should know that the people of Iran will insist on their honorable and powerful positions...Retreat is not a word in the Islamic Republic lexicon.”

It is not clear if “retreat” and “renegotiation” are one and the same for the Supreme Leader. But what he did make clear is that, when it comes to the nuclear agreement, for “every wrong move the system of domination” takes, the Islamic Republic will respond quickly, and with confidence.

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