WarSclerotic

The Islamic republic is the “victorious party” after nearly 40 years of military, economic and propaganda wars waged by the United States, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday on the eve of the anniversary of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

On Nov. 4, 1979, militant Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy and took 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days, amid what would ultimately come to be known the Islamic Revolution.

Speaking to thousands of Iranian students Saturday, Khamenei said the U.S. has failed to dominate Iran in the way it did before the 1979 revolution, which ousted a pro-Western monarchy.

He said that the U.S. is weaker now than it was in 1979.

The Iranian leader also said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies face opposition around the world, days before Washington was set to reimpose sanctions on Iran’s vital oil-exporting and financial sectors, state television reported.

“The world opposes every decision made by Trump,” Iranian state television quoted Khamenei as saying. “America’s goal has been to re-establish the domination it had [before 1979] but it has failed. America has been defeated by the Islamic republic over the past 40 years.”

Washington is expected to reintroduce far-reaching sanctions on Iran’s vital oil and banking sectors on Monday, in an effort to force the Islamic republic into scrapping its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and end its support for terrorist organizations in conflicts across the Middle East.

However, the Trump administration said on Friday that eight importing countries would temporarily be allowed to keep buying Iranian oil when sanctions come back into effect. Iran is currently the world’s No. 3 oil exporter.

Turkey said on Saturday that Ankara had received initial indications from Washington that it would be granted a waiver, but is awaiting clarification on Monday.

Indian Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said his country and other leading oil importers would benefit from the U.S. waivers.

Most international sanctions on Iran were lifted in early 2016 under a deal between Iran and world powers the previous year. Under the accord, Iran was obligated to curb its uranium enrichment program, widely seen abroad as a disguised effort to develop atomic weapons.

But Trump denounced the nuclear deal, approved by his predecessor Barack Obama, and withdrew Washington from the pact in May. Trump’s decision was welcomed by Israel and Washington’s Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab allies, involved in a proxy conflict with Shiite Iran for decades.

The United Arab Emirates’ minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said on Saturday that Iran’s “aggressive policies” were “largely responsible” for the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif spoke by telephone with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and his counterparts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark about pending European measures to counter the U.S. sanctions, Iranian state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force that oversees its operations abroad, responded to Trump’s Game of Thrones-inspired tweet on Friday that warned, “Sanctions are Coming.”

AP

“I will stand against you,” Soleimani said on Instagram, posting a similarly themed photo and repeating remarks made in July.

The EU, France, Germany and Britain – which were involved in the nuclear accord along with Russia and China – said in a joint statement on Friday they regretted Trump’s decision to restore sanctions on Iran.

Diplomats told Reuters last week that the new EU mechanism to facilitate payments for Iranian exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4 but not operational until early next year. They cautioned, however, that no country had volunteered to host the entity, which was delaying the process.

A senior French diplomat said on Saturday there was no way any trade with this mechanism could be conducted before the end of 2018. For now, no other countries, including China, would be part of it although that could change over time.

The other parties to the nuclear deal see it as an important bulwark against the risk of wider war in the Middle East and have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Iran has said it could leave the pact if the EU cannot protect its economic benefits.

“Iran … will not permit the Trump regime, which has made American foreign policy devoid of any principles, to reach its illegitimate goals,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by IRNA.