Daily Management Review

Iran Says Trump’s Belief That US-Iran War Would Be Short Is “An Illusion”


06/28/2019




Iran Says Trump’s Belief That US-Iran War Would Be Short Is “An Illusion”
Even as the United States is attempting to rope in NATO to create an anti-Tehran coalition, US president Donald Trump’s claim that even if there was to be a war with Iran it would be a short one, was summarily dismissed by Iran's foreign minister.
 
"'Short war' with Iran is an illusion," Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter on Thursday. A day ago, Trump had said a if a war with Iran did break out, it "wouldn't last very long", even though he had said that he did not want a war with Tehran.
 
The US has been accused by Tehran of engaging in "economic terrorism" and "psychological warfare" in reference to the Trump administration imposing very strict economic sanctions on Iran after the unilateral withdrawal of Washington last year from the Iran nuclear deal. Apart from the US, a number of other world powers including Russia and the European Union were part of the deal which was struck in 2015 agreement. Tough international sanctions on Iran were lifted in exchange of a pledge by Iran to scale back its nuclear programme according to the deal.
 
The reimposed and tightened US sanctions "aren't an alternative to war - they are war", said Zarif in his Twitter post.
 
Any attempt by the US to cross the borders of Iran would result in a "stronger" reaction than the shooting down of a US drone a week ago, warned Iran's parliamentary speaker separately on Thursday.
 
The shootdown of the unmanned aerial vehicle was "a good experience for them to avoid any aggression", said Speaker Ali Larijani as published by Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency on Thursday. "Iran's reaction will be stronger if they repeat their mistake of violating our borders," Larijani said.
 
Iran has claimed that on June 20, when the Global Hawk surveillance drone was shot down by its surface to air missiles, the unmanned drone was within the air space of Iran. That claim had been opposed by the US which said that the drone was international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz at the time of the shoot down.
 
Following that incident, retaliatory military action had been ordered by Trump against Iran but later called off the planned strikes on Iranian military installations because of concerns of potential human casualties. The shooting down of the drone was the first instance that Iran had directly attacked an American asset ever since tension started to build up between the two countries after Trump withdrew America from the Iran nuclear agreement.
 
There has visibly been an escalation in the war of words between Washington and Tehran in recent months. Earlier this week, Trump threatened Iran with "obliteration" following the Iranian president Hassan Rouhani describing the actions by the Trump administration to be "mentally retarded".
 
On the other hand, NATO allies were urged to become part of the efforts of the US of squeezing Iran and trying to ensure that ships moving through in the Gulf were safe. There were two incidents of two oil tankers were attacked earlier this month in the shipping lane of Strait of Hormuz. The US had blamed Iran to have been be behind attacks which Iran has rebuffed.
 
(Source:www.aljazeera.com)