The chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the enemies of Iran “have reached the end of the line” and despite their ostentatious appearance, they are suffering from “osteoporosis.”
“This is the most decisive moment for the Islamic Revolution, because the enemy has come to the battlefield with all of its capacities at its disposal,” Major General Hossein Salami said during a meeting with IRGC commanders on Wednesday.
He also warned that Iran is “on the verge of a full-scale confrontation” with the enemies,” adding that they are trying to crush the Iranian nation's resistance through “the strategy of maximum pressure and by using all of their capacities.”
However, they will fail once again to achieve their objective, Salami noted.
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The remarks come a day after Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei downplayed the United States’ highly belligerent rhetoric against Iran, stressing that Washington's real capability do not match its inflated bluster.
“In [its] policy of confrontation with the Islamic Republic too, the US will definitely suffer defeat, and [the situation] will end up to our benefit,” the Leader said, citing warnings by American analysts that Washington’s pressure on Tehran would, contrary to its intended purpose, trigger an “economic mutation.”
The US has ratcheted up pressure on Iran since last year after withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal, dubbed as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Since then, the administration of US President Donald Trump is trying to reduce Iran’s oil exports to “zero,” and has sent an aircraft carrier strike group, a bomber squad, an amphibious assault ship, and a Patriot missile battery to the Middle East to try to stack up pressure on Tehran.
Iranian officials, however, have dismissed such moves as psychological warfare, saying the country has its own ways of circumventing the American bans and selling crude oil.
In May 2018, Trump withdrew Washington from the JCPOA, reached in July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany — and decided to re-impose unilateral sanctions against Tehran.
Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.