Ever since May 2018, when President Trump chose to abandon the landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several other world powers, the war of words has steadily been escalating – which would be amusing if it was not Middle Eastern peace that was in danger. the latest retort has come from Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani who has called the latest sanctions one of desperation, and has called the White House “mentally retarded”. Not the most mature of statements even if one could liken this condition to some of Donald Trump’s recent decisions.
The latest sanctions are aimed at the Countries Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who Mr Trump states is “ultimately responsible for the hostile conduct of the regime”. He is also quoted as saying “I can only tell you we cannot ever let Iran have a nuclear weapon. They are the number one sponsor of terror anywhere in the world.”
Now to be fair Iran has questionable foreign policies in the region, and the shooting down of an American Drone even if it was in their airspace was not the wisest of things to do given the tensions caused by the recent tanker attacks (which they may or may not have been behind). However one could argue quite cogently that Saudi Arabia is still the worlds number one terrorist funder something which Donald Trump himself acknowledged in his book ‘Time to Get Tough,’ published in 2015 where he wrote:
“Look at Saudi Arabia. It is the world’s biggest funder of terrorism. Saudi Arabia funnels our petrodollars – our very own money – to fund the terrorists that seek to destroy our people, while the Saudis rely on us to protect them.”
Of course, now that he is president he seems happy enough to cosy up to them as long as they keep buying American weapons. Further, the best way to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons in the future would be to maintain the 2015 agreement and not to destroy their economy for no other reason than you want to sabre rattle and revoke an international treaty put in place by your predecessor. Hopefully, the conflict will remain one of name calling until common sense prevails.
You can read a fairly well-balanced review of Irans Terrorism Activities Here
