Posted on 03/09/17
| News Source: Algemeiner
US President Donald Trump is not as flexible as his predecessor Barack Obama was regarding Iran, a top Tehran regime official said this week, the semi-official state news agency Mehr reported.
In a letter he wrote to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Mohsen Rezaee — the secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — wrote, “The policy of rejecting war and aggression in the face of a belligerent rhetoric of the White House would not produce desirable result like that it would during Obama administration. Trump is totally different than Obama and his overnight decisions would turn the situation upside down once he saw Tehran more malleable and retreating against US regional allies such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.”
“The current language of diplomacy and peace should be changed to signal to Trump that Iran was not too weak and compromising to be easily molded in the hands of the White House,” Rezaee went on to say. “Nor should Tehran act in a manner to tantalize Trump administration into even more dangerous adventurism such as military option. This is the art of the foreign policy and diplomacy to keep a safe distance from Trump, yet to prevent him from going too farther afield and into the wilderness.”
Furthermore, Rezaee called on the regime to “challenge the US on the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] to revive Iranian national rights.” He also rejected the notion of rapprochement with America, saying, “On this, Iranians have years of experience and should not repeat the error of judgment in trusting the US.”
Last week, as reported by The Algemeiner, Rezaee asserted that Iran has the power to compel the Trump administration to abide by the JCPOA.
Referring to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, Rezaee wrote on Instagram, “The US president has bragged about imposing sanctions against several Iranian individuals and firms, saying that he has reaffirmed his unbreakable alliance with Israel and that he would continue pressures on Iran.”
“Mr. Trump! Your warnings are a political trick to defy your undertakings under the nuclear deal,” he continued. “(But) I ensure you that we will do something that you would be forced to…comply with all your nuclear deal undertakings instead of issuing warnings.”
Last month, two days after “officially putting Iran on notice” over recent hostile behavior — including a ballistic missile test — the Trump administration announced new sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic.
During a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in mid-February, Trump vowed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability.
At a joint press conference with Netanyahu, Trump called the JCPOA “one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen.”