Rouhani: Iran Will Reciprocate for New US Sanctions

Says Iran Must Stand Up to the United States

In his weekly speech on the state media, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the new US sanctions imposed yesterday against his country, saying that the Iranian parliament will have an appropriate reciprocal action, and that Iran will “stand up” to the United States.

Rouhani was light on specifics about what Iran would do to retaliate over the sanctions. Other officials had suggested Iran might withdraw from the P5+1 deal, but Rouhani says that Iran remains committed to the pact irrespective of the US actions.

Iranian officials broadly consider the new sanctions a violation of the P5+1 deal, since they target Iran for a UN resolution on testing nuclear-capable missiles, and the P5+1 deal Iran is complying with precludes them having any such warheads for their missiles in the first place.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guyard issued their own statement on the matter saying that the US shouldn’t impose any sanctions against Iran’s defensive operations unless they first moved all American bases 1,000 km away from the Iranian coast. This is being interpreted as a threat by some, but might also reflect the reality that the US military presence near Iran, and constant US threats to attack, are a big reason Iran is trying to improve their retaliatory capability in the first place.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.