The Iranian people’s response to the Secretary of State’s demands will be a “strong punch to the mouth,” warned an Iranian military leader.
By: United with Israel Staff
A senior Iranian military commander on Tuesday dismissed US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s list of 12 demands with which Iran must comply, or face “the strongest sanctions in history.”
A commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) slammed Pompeo and “anyone who backs” the US, saying that the Iranian people will deliver to the American official a “strong punch to the mouth.”
“The people of Iran should stand united in the face of [Pompeo’s demands]” said Ismail Kowsari, the deputy commander of the Sarollah Revolutionary Guards base in Tehran, reported Iran’s ILNA news.
The IRGC is entrusted with Iran’s foreign espionage and sabotage activities.
The harsh comments came a day after Pompeo delivered a speech titled “After the Deal: A New Iran Strategy,” in which he spelled out the unprecedented financial pressure the US would put on Tehran, while stating that Washington would not renegotiate the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic until Tehran complied with 12 demands, including the withdrawal of its forces from Syria, Yemen and Lebanon and cessation of aggression against Israel.
Pompeo vowed that this approach, formulated by President Donald Trump, would ensure that “Iran has no possible path to a nuclear weapon, ever.”
“These will end up being the strongest sanctions in history by the time we are complete,” Pompeo said.
Pompeo’s ‘Meddlesome, Hostile and Threatening Comments’
Iran’s Foreign Ministry also lashed out at Pompeo for his “meddlesome, hostile and threatening comments.”
In a Monday statement, the Foreign Ministry said Pompeo’s “cheap, baseless, insulting and interventionist” remarks and the accusations he leveled against the “great and civilized Iranian nation” are indicative of the US’ “despair and desperation in the face of the Iranian nation.”
Iran charged that Pompeo’s remarks were a “forlorn attempt” to deflect world public opinion from Washington’s “illegal” withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
“Pompeo’s remarks once again revealed the poor intelligence, weak oversight, analytical backwardness and confusion in decision-making processes in the United States, and showed that radical and hawkish currents in the US neither know history, nor can learn lessons from it,” said the statement.
“The American regime which, despite opposition by all countries in the world except a handful of small regimes, has reneged on all its political, legal and international obligations, is not in a position to set conditions for a major country like Iran, which has made good on its commitments,” it added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is a system emanating from the Islamic Revolution of Iranian people, who have stood up to, and emerged victorious, in the face of all the wicked conspiracies of the US and its allies over the past four decades, and will continue to survive from now on and make the United States’ new plots go down in defeat,” the statement read.
“The responsibility for any hit-and-run, illegal and bullying measure against the Iranian nation lies with the US government,” the statement concluded.