The US special representative for Iran said the successor to Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike, would suffer the same fate if he followed a similar path of killing Americans, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported.
Washington blamed Soleimani for masterminding attacks by Iran-aligned militias against US forces in the region. US President Donald Trump ordered the Jan. 3 drone strike in Iraq after a build-up of tension over Iran's nuclear program.
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Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani, who was charged with expanding Tehran's influence across the Middle East, by launching missile strikes on US targets in Iraq.
After Soleimani's death, Tehran swiftly appointed Esmail Ghaani as the new head of the Quds Force, an elite unit in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for foreign operations. The new commander pledged to pursue Soleimani's course.
"If Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate," Brian Hook told the Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat.
He said in the interview in Davos that US President Donald Trump had long made it clear "that any attack on Americans or American interests would be met with a decisive response."
"This isn't a new threat. The president has always said that he will always respond decisively to protect American interests," Hook said. "I think the Iranian regime understands now that they cannot attack America and get away with it."
After his appointment, Ghaani promised to "continue in this luminous path" taken by Soleimani and said the goal was to drive US forces out of the region, which has long been Iran's stated policy.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told European powers on Wednesday not to copy the United States by undermining Tehran's strained nuclear pact with world powers and said Tehran would not seek nuclear weapons whether or not the deal survived.
"With or without the nuclear deal or the [International Atomic Energy Agency's] safeguards, whether our relation with the UN nuclear watchdog is good or bad, Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons," Rouhani said.
Britain, France and Germany launched a dispute mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal this month, accusing Iran of violating the deal that has become increasingly frayed since Washington pulled out in 2018 and then reimposed sanctions on Tehran.
The dispute mechanism could ultimately lead to the case being referred to the UN Security Council to restore UN sanctions. Iranian officials have threatened a range of steps if this should happen, including quitting the 2015 deal or even withdrawing from the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, basis for global nuclear arms control since the Cold War.
Rouhani said on his website on Wednesday that the United States had made a mistake by quitting the 2015 pact.
"Do you want to make the same mistake? ... I am emphasizing that if the Europeans make a mistake and violate the deal, they will be responsible for the consequences of their actions," he said.
Rouhani's chief of staff, Mahmoud Vaezi, had earlier said one of Tehran's possible responses to the crisis would be to withdraw from the 2015 deal. Rouhani said of the pact: "We do not want to destroy it and we are still committed to the deal."
