“We hope that they do not make a new strategic mistake. In that case, they will face our [and the] resistance [front’s] response,” Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei told a news conference on Tuesday.
In a tweet on Monday, Trump referred to “press reports” that Iran “may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States” in retaliation for Washington’s assassination of top Iranian anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq early this year.
The claim was initially made in a report by Politico, which cited US officials “familiar” with the matter. Iran categorically rejected the allegations.
The US president then threatened, “Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”
In response, the Iranian government official said, “We have witnessed, throughout the region’s history, that the US initiated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq based on bogus reports. This is an American tradition.”
The current US president, he added, has nothing to do but jeopardize regional and international peace.
The spokesperson advised the US to “avoid new adventurism” because the creation of new insecurity in the region in order to win the presidential election is “unforgivable” and “a betrayal of humanity.”
Rabiei expressed regret that “the president of a country who has claims to global management and order would make explicit, agenda-fuelled and dubious remarks based on such a weak claim.”
He said the Trump administration assassinated General Soleimani who has been the “symbol of peace and fight against terrorism in the region,” emphasizing that this stigma would never go away and the Iranian people would never forget it.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeid Khatibzadeh on Monday vehemently dismissed the “biased and agenda-driven” report published in the American media outlet, which cited the statements of a seemingly US government official in an effort to make it appear true.
The military assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), along with Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi, and their companions by targeting their vehicle outside the Baghdad International Airport on January 3.
The cowardly act of terror was carried out under the direction of President Trump, with the Pentagon taking responsibility for the strike.
General Soleimani is viewed by the world’s freedom-seeking people as the key figure in defeating Daesh, the world’s most notorious terrorist group, in the Middle East battles.
Any normalization with Israel ‘big strategic mistake’
The government spokesman also reacted to recent decisions by some Arab states to normalize relations with the Israeli regime and said, “The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran regards any move to recognize relations with the occupying Zionist regime (Israel) as a big strategic mistake, which will certainly increase regional Muslim nations’ awareness about the ominous goals of individuals who yield to such deals.”
Rabiei added that the Iranian government warns against any Israeli move to sow insecurity in the Persian Gulf region and holds Bahrain and any other country that prepare the ground for the Tel Aviv regime to gain a foothold in the region responsible for all the adverse consequences.
“Iran believes that such relations have increased dangers in the region and will fail to help [promote] peace and stability,” he said, emphasizing that the Israeli regime’s interference in the region is dangerous.
“This is a fundamental mistake which is being made under the US pressure and will not be beneficial to the regional nations but will rather serve the interests of Trump’s election campaign,” he added.
Trump announced on September 11 that the tiny Persian Gulf state of Bahrain had struck an agreement to normalize relations with Tel Aviv, hailing the deal as yet another “HISTORIC breakthrough.”
The agreement came roughly a month after Washington brokered another deal enabling a similar rapprochement between the United Arab Emirates and the occupying regime.
Bahrain has agreed to formalize the deal with Israel at a ceremony later on Tuesday at the White House, where the UAE would also sign off on its own thaw with Tel Aviv.