Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that “peace with Iran would be the mother of all peace and war with Iran would be the mother of all wars.” This was Trump’s mature response.
To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 23, 2018
Unsurprisingly, they’re laughing at him. Washington Post:
Iran’s state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency replied within hours, dismissing Trump’s tweet and describing it as a “passive reaction” to Rouhani’s remarks.
Then Mike Pompeo made a speech about a corrupt and wealthy regime that resembles the Mafia, which is very interesting considering where he works.
“The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the Mafia more than a government,” he said in a speech made to a largely Iranian American audience at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Pompeo was introduced by Fred Ryan, publisher of The Washington Post and chairman of the Ronald Reagan Foundation.
Pompeo said the administration has concluded that Tehran has no statesmen willing to moderate its policies, a sharp break from the Obama administration, which negotiated the nuclear deal hoping an improving economy would give relative pragmatists like Rouhani a boost.
But Pompeo said Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are “merely polished frontmen for the Ayatollah’s international con artistry. Their nuclear deal didn’t make them moderates, it made them wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Bear in mind that pro bono Rudy Giuliani gets paid for giving speeches to Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), a controversial dissident group that the State Department has listed as a terrorist group until 2012. All signs lead to confrontation with the Islamic Republic, with whom the United States has not had relations since the revolution in Iran in 1979.
“Mike Pompeo removed all doubt today that the aim of the Trump administration is confrontation with Iran — not a better nuclear deal or new negotiations,” Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, said in a statement. “The Trump administration’s actions and words are simply not compatible with any policy other than fomenting unrest in and destabilizing Iran.”
Our European allies, whom Trump either blithely disregards or openly insults are alarmed, needless to say. The Guardian:
America’s allies cannot duck this looming storm. White House pressure, direct political interference, the use of US financial and currency levers, bogus intelligence, public scaremongering, egregious disregard for democratic norms, the UN and international law and aggressive hostility to bridge-building and diplomacy – these are among the familiar methods Trump is employing to bully individual European governments into supporting his anti-Iran attrition and penalise them if they refuse. Yet in Putin’s case, kowtowing cravenly before imagined strength, he offers carrots, not sticks, plus large dollops of crapulous fawning.
It is by no means certain that Russia will play along. The Helsinki summit, by merely taking place, is a second bankable breakthrough for Putin following his World Cup public-relations coup. Ali Akbar Velayati, chief adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, received a warm welcome in Moscow last week, where he was assured of Russia’s continued friendship. Nor is it clear Putin has the power to eject Iran from Syria even if he wished.
But rational considerations will not deter an out-of-control Trump and his willing coalition of rightwing ideologues, unelected dictators and Israeli hawks from picking a fight if, for example, Tehran blockades the Strait of Hormuz and halts all Gulf oil exports. Is the prospect of war with Iran sufficient reason for the western democracies to stand up to Trump at last? Is this emerging new “axis of evil”, linking Trump, Putin and Assad, the ultimate abomination that finally forces our leaders to say enough is enough? War with Iran could make Iraq look like a walk in the park. Yet who, if not us, will stop him?
