Trump takes aim at Teheran

US President threatens to rip up Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal and suffers a backlash from other world leaders.

TEHERAN: US President Donald Trump’s speech in which he outlined an aggressive new strategy against Iran shows the United States is “more than ever isolated in its opposition to the nuclear deal”, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (pic) said.

Rouhani spoke in a televised address shortly after Trump’s much-anticipated White House speech in which he “decertified” his support for the 2015 nuclear agreement, and left its fate in the hands of Congressional lawmakers.

“Today the United States is more than ever isolated in its opposition to the nuclear deal and in its plots against the Iranian people,” Rouhani said.

“What was heard today was nothing but the repetition of baseless accusations and swear words that they have repeated for years,” Rouhani said.

He dismissed Trump’s threat to “terminate” the landmark deal that Teheran signed with six world powers if Congress does not impose tough new sanctions on Iran.

“He has not studied international law. Can a president annul a multilateral international treaty on his own?” Rouhani said.

“Apparently he doesn’t know that this agreement is not a bilateral agreement solely between Iran and the United States.”

Rouhani responded in kind to Trump’s list of alleged destabilising activities in the region with his own catalogue of US misdemeanour’s, starting with the CIA’s involvement in a 1953 coup, which toppled Iran’s democratically elected government.

He criticised United States involvement in wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, and highlighted the shooting down by a US naval vessel of an Iran Air passenger flight in 1988, which killed 290 people.