Remember: all along, Iran has been claiming that its nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes. Yet now the Ayatollah Khamenei has inadvertently admitted to Iran’s intentions:
America’s brutal sanctions on Iran are aimed at collapsing our economy … Their aim is to limit our influence in the region and to halt our missile and nuclear capabilities.
No one with any common sense should have believed Iran in the first place, but the Obama administration apparently did, as it paid tens of billions in backroom deals on top of the nuclear deal. Less than a year ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran was “developing nuclear weapons at a secret site near the city of Abadeh, but that Tehran destroyed the facility after learning it had been exposed.”
“Iran’s Khamenei rejects talks with US over missile, nuclear programs,” Reuters, July 31, 2020:
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ruled out negotiations with the United States over Tehran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs on Friday and urged Iranians to resist US pressure.
“America’s brutal sanctions on Iran are aimed at collapsing our economy … Their aim is to limit our influence in the region and to halt our missile and nuclear capabilities,” Khamenei said in a speech broadcast live on television.
“Relying on national capabilities and cutting our dependence on oil exports will help us to resist America’s pressure.” Relations between Tehran and Washington have deteriorated since US President Donald Trump in 2018 abandoned a pact between Iran and six world powers under which Iran accepted curbs on its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions.
The United States has reimposed sanctions that have sharply lowered Tehran’s oil exports…..