Iranian officials vowed to get revenge for this weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against their illegal nuclear program by launching terrorist attacks and pledged to resume enriching uranium as quickly as possible.
The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, a joint operations command for the secular wing of the Iranian military plus the theocracy-controlled Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), vowed to conduct “powerful and targeted operations” that “will impose severe, regret-inducing, and unpredictable consequences” on the United States.
“We assure you that with this act of aggression, the hands of time will not turn in your favor,” Khatam al-Anbiya spokesman Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari said Monday.
Zolfaqari claimed the powerful U.S. airstrikes that flattened the Iranian nuclear facilities of Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow on Saturday night did not actually eliminate the Iran’s uranium enrichment program.
“This hostile act was aimed at reviving the dying Zionist regime, but not only did it fail, it will also expand the range of legitimate and diverse targets for Iran’s armed forces,” he said.
Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi – who got the job when Israel liquidated his predecessor Mohammad Bagheri in an airstrike last week – made similar threats in his belligerent statement Monday.
“The criminal United States must know that it has given the Armed Forces’ warriors a free hand to take any action against its interests and military,” Mousavi raged, vowing that Iran would “never back down.”
Iranian Army commander Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami said the U.S. could expect terrorist attacks like those it faced in the 1980s.
“Every time they committed crimes, they received a decisive response. This time will be no exception,” he said.
Hatami told a gathering of the surviving Iranian military commanders that their “successful missions” against Israel made the Israelis so nervous that they were “forced to directly involve the primary culprit of these crimes and push it into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic.”
“Allah willing, divine support will be with us, and victory will be achieved,” he told his subordinates.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said President Donald Trump was “acting in full coordination with the Zionist regime” to “portray Iran as the party rejecting dialogue” in order to justify strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“Iran does not seek war and will never do so; it is Israel, through its aggressive actions, that is endangering regional security,” Pezeshkian told Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a telephone call on Sunday.
“The U.S. is attempting to keep the region unstable, sow discord among Muslim nations, loot the rich resources of Islamic countries, and flood the region with weapons and ammunition instead of helping development,” he claimed. In reality, Iran is the primary supplier of weapons and funding to terrorists and insurgents across the Middle East.
Pezeshkian then called French President Emmanuel Macron to complain that the airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities were a “clear sign of American dishonesty.”
“The United States has attacked us. If you were in such a situation, what would you do? Naturally, they must be held accountable for their aggression,” he told Macron.
Pezeshkian’s last phone conference was with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Iranian president told Modi his country would keep trying to enrich uranium despite the “law-of-the-jungle behavior” of the U.S. and Israel.
Even though Iran has been doggedly enriching uranium to levels far beyond any civilian application – which is one reason the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ruled Iran was not complying with its nuclear treaty obligations last week – Pezeshkian insisted to Modi that U.S. and Israeli allegations of Iran seeking nuclear weapons were a “big, historic lie.”
“The U.S. and Israel have no right to impose their will on other nations beyond legal norms. They must abandon their policy of pressure, threats, warfare, and global destabilization,” he complained.
“The real source of insecurity in the region is the U.S.-Israeli conspiracy, and Iran’s response to Israel was a legitimate act of self-defense,” he insisted, referring to Iran’s wanton and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilian targets over the past week.
Pezeshkian was probably unsatisfied with the response from all three leaders he called on Sunday. Macron and India essentially told him to return to the nuclear negotiating table, while even the Pakistani president did little more than express his “shock” at the U.S. airstrikes and promise to “firmly back Iran in international forums.”
Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Takht Ravanchi on Sunday seconded Pezeshkian’s insistence that the Iranians are “sincere members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” but also intends to resume enriching uranium to near-weapons-grade levels as quickly as possible.
“No one can tell us what we should and should not do as long as we remain within the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” Ravanchi insisted in an interview with German media.
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