Iran yesterday dismissed Washington’s declaration of a massive economic pressure campaign, saying it disproved US claims to have dismantled Tehran’s military and nuclear capabilities.
“Your narrative doesn’t add up: you say that Iran’s military power has been ‘dismantled,’ 100% of its military factories ‘destroyed’ and its nuclear program ‘buried,’” Iranian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi said in a post on X.
Yet, “there is a need for ‘the largest financial invasion in history’ and the mobilization of ‘all institutions and powers’ of the United States! Is this a victory or an admission of America’s defeat?” he added.
Photo: AFP
Earlier, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent wrote in the Financial Times that Washington was launching the “single greatest financial offensive marshalled against an adversary”— calling it an “economic D-Day.”
Bessent posted on X that the measure came after the US “dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 percent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear program.”
He was scheduled to explain the new US sanctions on Iran yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned countries against joining the US economic campaign, with ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei saying taking part would “definitely have its own consequences.”
The US and Israel triggered the Middle East war with a massive wave of strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, triggering Iranian retaliation across the region. An April 8 ceasefire ended nearly 40 days of intense bombardment, but control over the Strait of Hormuz soon emerged as a key flashpoint in the conflict. Iran has controlled the vital energy conduit since the war began.
Reopening the strait, vital for global oil and gas supplies, has become a US priority, but Tehran insists the waterway will remain closed until Washington lifts its naval blockade on Iranian ports, removes oil sanctions and unfreezes Iranian assets abroad.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would ramp up economic pressure on Iran “on an unprecedented scale.” Washington has urged other governments, including Beijing, to join efforts to further isolate Iran’s economy.
In an article published yesterday in Iran’s Ettela’at newspaper, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi said relations with China “have taken on deeper, more structural, and more comprehensive dimensions.”
Iran has faced US and international sanctions since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Trump has repeatedly pursued a “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions against Iran, reinstating the approach after returning to office in January last year following a similar campaign during his first term.
Iran has repeatedly dismissed the sanctions policy as a failure, insisting that economic pressure and threats will not force it to change course.
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