WE WOULD ‘OBLITERATE’ IRAN: U.S.
DUBAI , United Arab Emir ates • President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Iran that any attack on “anything American” would be met with “great and overwhelming force” following Iranian remarks slamming new U.S. sanctions as permanently closing the path to diplomacy amid a spike in tensions in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s leadership “doesn’t understand the words ‘nice’ or ‘compassion,’ they never had,” Trump said in a series of tweets.
“Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power,” he said. “Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration!”
Iranian officials earlier Tuesday criticized new penalties targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that the White House had “become mentally crippled.”
In a searing televised address, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called restrictions against Iran’s supreme leader “outrageous and idiotic” and said they showed “certain failure” on the part of the Trump administration to isolate Iran.
Trump called Rouhani’s comments “ignorant and insulting,” saying that they only showed that Iran does “not understand reality.”
“You call for negotiations. If you are telling the truth, why are you simultaneously seeking to sanction our foreign minister?” Rouhani said Tuesday, referring to remarks by U.S. officials suggesting plans to sanction Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later this month.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Tuesday, told reporters that Iran’s reaction was “a bit immature and childlike.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Twitter that the “useless sanctioning” of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Zarif, who led Iran’s nuclear negotiations with world powers, “means the permanent closure of the doors of diplomacy.”
“Trump’s government is annihilating all of the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security,” said the spokesman, Abbas Mousavi.