Iranian parliament strikes back at U.S.

Lawmakers pass bill boosting spending on missile program.

TEHRAN, IRAN — Chanting “Death to America,” Iran’s parliament voted unanimously Sunday to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, part of a sanctions bill mirroring a new U.S. law targeting the country.

While offering hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding, the lawmakers’ bill offered a tactic as old as the slogan shouted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution — using America’s own tactics against it.

The vote salves public anger in Iran over U.S. President Donald Trump’s constant threats to renegotiate or abandon the nuclear deal struck by world powers under his predecessor. While lawmakers stressed the bill wouldn’t violate that agreement, it ensures that those both home and abroad know Iran will continue confronting the U.S. either in the Persian Gulf or legislatively, analysts say.

“They want to show that the pressure that the U.S. is exerting on Iran, they can respond with similar measures,” said Adnan Tabatabai, an Iran analyst based in Germany. “It’s not that important that those measures may not hurt the U.S. in the same way . ... They want to show they are not just standing still and watching this happening.”

In the session Sunday, 240 lawmakers voted for the bill, with only one abstention from the 247 legislators on hand, Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA reported. After the vote, parliament speaker Ali Larijani described the measure as just the first step the country could take.

The bill now heads to an oversight committee called the Guardian Council, which is expected to approve it. Abbas Araghchi, a deputy foreign minister and senior nuclear negotiator on hand for the vote, said moderate President Hassan Rouhani’s government supported the bill.

“This bill is an astute response to the enmity and wickedness of the United States against Iran,” he said, according to IRNA.

Under terms of the bill, about $800 million will be put toward several projects, including the Defense Ministry and its intelligence agencies. Among the agencies receiving money would be the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force run by Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who has been advising forces in Syria and Iraq.

The Guard, separate from Iran’s conventional military forces, answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

VAHID SALEMI / ASSOCIATED PRESS In response to President Donald Trump’s threats to renegotiate or abandon a nuclear deal struck by world powers, Iran’s parliament voted unanimously Sunday to allocate about $800 million to be put toward several projects.