As the White House secured their last needed vote to block a veto override in the Senate on the nuclear deal, Iran unleashed a double-pronged attack: vowing to block inspector access to some sites, and vowing to continue preparations to destroy Israel.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said today that the International Atomic Energy Agency — which inked confidential deals with Tehran that Congress has not been able to see — would not be able to see all the facilities it wants to.
“Iran does not plan to issue permission for the IAEA to inspect every site,” Dehqan said in an interview with al-Mayadeen news network on Wednesday, reported the semi-official Fars News Agency.
Back in July, he stressed that “missile-related issues have never been on agenda of the nuclear talks and the Islamic system will resolutely implement its programs in this field.”
“The US officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation.”
Also today, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps said they have work to do.
The IRGC’s top commander in Tehran province, Brigadier General Mohsen Kazzemeini, told operating units undergoing drills in the capital that “they (the US and the Zionists) should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine,” according to Fars.
“And we will continue defending not just our own country, but also all the oppressed people of the world, specially those countries that are standing on the forefront of confrontation with the Zionists,” Kazzemeini said.
Iran’s Press TV mused that “questions remain on how far Tel Aviv would really go, with its warmongering premier Benjamin Netanyahu, to disrupt the accord,” rhetoric that’s potentially setting the stage for an attack on Israel that they’d call defensive.
Even as President Obama was securing the Senate support necessary to assure passage of the nuclear deal with Iran, Tehran's top defense officials were scoffing at U.S. claims the pact will restrict the Islamic Republic's military ambitions.
The president has been twisting arms and Secretary of State John Kerry reassuring lawmakers that the deal between Iran and the P5 +1 - members of the UN Security Council plus Germany - will ensure international inspections and bar Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons. This week, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., became the 34th member of the Senate to back the controversial and unpopular deal, meaning that if it is defeated in a vote as expected, Obama will have enough support to sustain his certain veto. But Iran's military brass has answered the U.S. nose-counting by thumbing their nose at America.
“Iran does not plan to issue permission for the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to inspect every site," Iranian Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan told Al Mayadeen News Wednesday. "U.S. officials make boastful remarks and imagine that they can impose anything on the Iranian nation because they lack a proper knowledge of the Iranian nation.”
Iran’s official FARS news agency added that “Dehqan had earlier underlined that Tehran would not allow any foreigner to discover Iran's defensive and missile capabilities by inspecting the country's military sites.”
On the same day, a top Iranian general told troops preparing for a massive military drill involving up to 250,000 men that “the U.S. and the Zionists should know that the Islamic Revolution will continue enhancing its preparedness until it overthrows Israel and liberates Palestine.”
The bluster from Iran is in sharp contrast to the message Obama and Kerry conveyed to lawmakers to line up support for the deal, which lifts international sanctions and frees up $150 billion in Iranian funds frozen when the Islamic Republic took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days beginning in 1979.
Officials in Jerusalem also note that a significant majority of the American public oppose the deal and sympathize with Israel’s predicament.
“The American people get it,” an official Israeli source told today’s Jerusalem Post. “They understand the dangers to Israel. Iranian leaders openly say they will continue their terrorism and aggression, and they will now – with the sanctions relief – have enhanced resources to do, so because the deal will give them billions of dollars.”
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