Iranian President Lashes Critics, Defends Nuclear Deal

Sanctions Had Reduced Trade to 'Stone Age' Levels

Speaking at a televised conference today, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani praised the negotiating team that settled on last week’s nuclear deal with the P5+1, and expressed exasperation at domestic critics of the pact, saying he can’t imagine how any Iranian objects to a deal that lifts the sanctions.

“This is a new page in history,” Rouhani insisted, saying it was all well and good to pick through the deal line by line to find things to complain about, but that “what has happened is more valuable and more significant than that.”

Rouhani said ensuring Iran’s rights to a civilian nuclear program was important, but that Iranians also needed to be able to live their daily lives, noting the international sanctions had reduced Iran’s international trade to “a stone age level.”

With Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei endorsing the pact, even with some reservations, the criticism from the ultra-Conservative opposition and members of the military really amounts to very little, and the deal isn’t in any serious danger of being rejected in Iran.

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.