A week after President Trump described Iran as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” and declared that the U.S. will levy fresh sanctions against Iran, Tehran has announced it will be expanding — not reducing — its missile program. A new statement from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards describes Trump’s sanctions as “cruel” and “hostile” and depicts the POTUS as the nervous leader of a declining state.
“Trump’s anxiety and trembling voice in his speech was a sign of beginning of the era of failure for America’s hegemony,” said the IRGC chief commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency. “Iran’s ballistic missile programme will expand and it will continue with more speed in reaction to Trump’s hostile approach towards this revolutionary organisation (the Guards).”
President Trump has talked big in recent months about his disdain for the Iran deal, though he’s wavered on how exactly to handle the country’s missile program and nuclear ambitions. Trump only grew more adamant in his October 13 speech, however, when he announced that the Treasury Department was newly authorized to further sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Trump described in no wavering terms as “Iranian Supreme Leader’s corrupt personal terror force and militia.” He also now wants to end the nuclear deal, although he recently renewed it.
Tehran was just as bold in its response, asserting that the imposition of “cruel sanctions against the Guards” and the “hostile approach of the rogue and brute (U.S.) president shows the failure of America and the Zionist regime’s (Israel) wicked policies in the region.” Iran and the United States have long been on opposing sides of Middle Eastern policy and strategy, and this isn’t the first time that Iran has flouted Trump’s bluster with a missile-related announcement. This latest exchange certainly won’t be the last, either.
(Via Reuters)