Iran president warns of ‘war situation’
TEHRAN, IRAN — The U.S. reimposed all sanctions Monday on Iran that once were lifted under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, grinding further down on the Islamic Republic’s already-ailing economy in what President Hassan Rouhani described as a “war situation” now facing Tehran.
Iran ran televised air defence drills showing soldiers cheering the downing of a drone, but otherwise held back from any military response over U.S. efforts to curtail what Washington calls its “malign activities” across the Middle East. While previously warning it could ramp up its nuclear program, Iran still honours the atomic accord now limiting its enrichment of uranium, the United Nations says.
As Iranian officials struck a martial tone, the strain could be felt on the streets of Tehran. It lurked in shops emptied by the country’s rapidly depreciating currency. It could be felt in the lines at currency exchange shops. And it could be heard in the stress of the voices of people struggling to buy medicine.
“When the dollar rate went up, prices for medicine went up by 80 per cent,” said a man who identified himself only as Amidi, who suffers from mental illness and has a son with cancer. “I can’t buy my own medicine anymore. I haven’t taken my medicine for two months, because I can’t afford it.”
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed penalties on more than 700 Iranian and Iranian-linked individuals, entities, aircraft and vessels in the new sanctions. Among those are 50 Iranian banks and subsidiaries, more than 200 people and ships, Iran’s state-run airline Iran Air and more than 65 of its planes.
The new sanctions particularly hurt Iran’s vital oil industry, which provides a crucial source of hard currency. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told journalists in Washington the sanctions already had cost Iran the sale of over 1 million barrels of crude oil a day.
“Our objective is to starve the Iranian regime of the revenue it uses to fund violent and destabilizing activities throughout the Middle East and, indeed, around the world,” Pompeo said. “The Iranian regime has a choice: It can either do a 180-degree turn from its outlawed course of action and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy crumble.”
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise of tearing up the nuclear deal, insists it does not seek “regime change” in Iran through the sanctions. It says it wants Iran to radically change its policies, including its support for regional militant groups and its development of long-range ballistic missiles.
However, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his national security adviser John Bolton both have given speeches advocating overthrowing Iran’s theocratic government.
Analysts feared in the run-up to the sanctions that global oil prices could spike on tight supply and increasing demand. However, the Trump administration allowed some of its allies — Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey — as well as rival China to continue to purchase Iranian oil as long as they work to reduce imports to zero. That caused prices of benchmark Brent crude to dip down from over $80 a barrel in recent days. It traded up over $73 a barrel Monday after the sanctions took effect.