A commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards shot back at President Trump’s warning to the Islamic Republic about threatening the United States as “psychological warfare,” according to a report on Monday.
“America wants nothing less than (to) destroy Iran,” Gholamhossein Gheybparvar said, Reuters reported, citing state media. “Trump cannot do a damn thing against Iran.”
“We will never abandon our revolutionary beliefs,” the brigadier general added. “We will resist pressure from enemies.”
His comments came after Trump in an all-caps tweet late Sunday blasted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for warning the US’ hostile policies would lead to the “mother of all wars.”
”To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!,” Trump wrote.
In a statement on Monday, US national security adviser John Bolton said he and Trump had talked about the threat from Iran.
“I spoke to the President over the last several days, and President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before,” it said.
The White House placed the blame for the uptick in the hostile rhetoric on Iran.
“If anybody’s inciting anything, look no further than to Iran,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, adding that the president has been “very clear about what he’s not going to allow to take place.”
A newspaper in Iran carried a headline quoting Rouhani as saying, “Mr. Trump, do not play with the lion’s tail.”
A noted Iranian analyst told the Associated Press that the war of words is the “storm before the calm,” drawing a comparison to the harsh comments Trump and North Korea exchanged before last month’s Singapore summit with leader Kim Jong Un.
Seed Leilaz said the two countries got “closer” despite the heated talk.
Leilaz said, “neither Iran, not any other country is interested in escalating tensions in the region.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in a speech at the Reagan Presidential Library in California, said the US will pursue a “diplomatic and economic pressure campaign” against the country in support of Iranians unhappy with their leaders, whom he referred to as “hypocritical holy men.”
Pompeo on Sunday said Washington would resume sanctions against Tehran after Trump withdrew in May from a 2015 nuclear deal that a handful of nations inked with Iran.
He said the aim is to get Iranian oil imports as close to “zero as possible” by Nov. 4, when the sanctions will resume.



