New Sanctions on Iran Show US Defeat, Confusion

In comments at a Tuesday meeting with Health Ministry officials in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani mocked the US decision to impose new sanctions on top Iranian authorities, including Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

The measures that the US is taking these days reveal its “definite defeat”, Rouhani said, adding that the American decision-makers are suffering frustration and great confusion after their plots against Iran ended in failure.

The White House is suffering from intellectual disability, the president said, stressing that the recent shooting down of a US spy drone by Iranian forces infuriated Washington.

The Americans, including the Pentagon, CENTCOM and White House, have been totally confused by this (downing of the drone), taking irrational measures and talking nonsense, he stated.  

Rouhani said the US is angry with Iran’s ability to detect the spy drone immediately after it violated the Iranian airspace, and more exasperated with the shooting down of its aircraft by an Iranian air defense system, not by S-300 or other systems.

As regards the restrictions that the US administration has announced against the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, the president said imposing sanctions against the highest-ranking political, religious, social and spiritual official of Iran who is also leader of the world’s Shiite Muslims reveals that the American government lacks any wisdom or prudence.

Unlike the other world leaders who possess billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution has no assets that could be subject to sanctions, Rouhani added.

His comments came after US President Donald Trump announced new sanctions against top Iranian officials, including the office of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s foreign minister, and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

The US had already blacklisted the entire IRGC, whose Aerospace Force units shot down an American drone that intruded into the airspace of Iran on June 20.

The IRGC said the ‘Global Hawk’ spy drone had taken off from a US military base in south of the Persian Gulf, switched off all of its communication systems, and flew towards the port city of Chabahar via the Strait of Hormuz in maximum stealth.

When flying back to the western part of the region, the unmanned plane violated the Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz and began to spy on Iran and collect information, the statement added.

IRGC Chief Major General Hossein Salami said later that the shooting down of the US drone had a straightforward message that any foreign intrusion into Iran’s sovereign territories would draw a crushing response.

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