Iran's supreme leader on Wednesday fired a fresh broadside at Washington's rejection of a nuclear agreement with Tehran, saying its action showed the Islamic Republic could not deal with a country that did not keep its commitments.
In his first public remarks since U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded Iran make sweeping policy changes, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei expressed revulsion at what he suggested was the casual and boastful way the Trump administration had abandoned the accord.
"The Islamic Republic cannot deal with a government that easily violates an international treaty, withdraws its signature and in a theatrical show brags about its withdrawal on television," he said in excerpts of his remarks posted on his official website.
Listing what he called his experiences of U.S. government behavior toward Tehran over the decades, Khamenei said, "The first experience is that the Islamic Republic cannot deal with America. Why? Because America is not loyal to its commitments.
"Iran was committed to the deal. They [the Americans] have no excuse. International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly verified Iran's commitment. But you see they [Americans] easily cancel this international agreement," he said.
Khamenei said that for Iran to remain in the current nuclear agreement, the European powers who are a part of it must issue a resolution condemning the U.S. for violating the deal and stand against any U.S. sanctions as well as guarantee the sale of Iranian oil.
"The current U.S. president will meet the same fate as his predecessors, Bush and the neoconservatives and Reagan, and will vanish from history," Khamenei declared.
He did not directly address remarks made by Pompeo on Monday that threatened Iran with "the strongest sanctions in history" if it did not curb its regional influence, accusing Tehran of supporting armed groups in countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Pompeo spoke two weeks after Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal that had lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs to its nuclear program. European powers see the accord as the best chance of stopping Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
France, one of several European powers dismayed by the U.S. withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear accord, said Washington's method of adding more sanctions on Tehran would reinforce the country's dominant hard-liners.
Iranian chief of staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri said Iran would not bow to Washington's pressure to limit its military activities. The United States "does not have the courage for military confrontation and face-to-face war with Iran," he said.
The Revolutionary Guards said in a statement: "The American leaders ... have got this message that if they attack Iran, they will encounter a fate similar to that of Saddam Hussein."
In Damascus, Syria's deputy foreign minister dismissed the notion of a withdrawal of Iranian forces.
In Syria's seven-year-old conflict, Iran has provided vital support to President Bashar Assad's military. Its forces and the militias it backs from the region, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, helped Damascus claw back control of major cities from militants and rebels.
"Whether Iranian forces or Hezbollah withdraw or stay in Syria is not up for discussion because it's the [business] of the Syrian government," Lebanon's Al Mayadeen TV cited Faisal Mekdad as saying.
Pompeo on Wednesday told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing the administration intended to work with "as many partners, friends and allies as possible" to stop what he described as all of Tehran's nuclear and non-nuclear threats.
In Paris, France's foreign minister said the U.S. decision to scrap the Iran nuclear deal and implement a tough strategy on the country would strengthen Tehran's hardliners and endanger the region.
"We disagree with the method because this collection of sanctions which will be set up against Iran will not enable dialogue and, on the contrary, it will reinforce the conservatives and weaken President Rouhani. This posture risks endangering the region more," Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Inter radio.
He said Paris would continue to implement the agreement even if it did agree with the United States that Iran's ballistic missile activity and regional hegemonic ambitions needed to be curbed.
He said Paris shared Washington's concerns over Iran's ballistic missile "frenzy" and regional ambitions, but the 2015 nuclear deal was the best chance of stopping Tehran developing a nuclear bomb.
