WarSclerotic

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday presented the country’s new state budget for next year, vowing in a televised speech that reimposed sanctions by US President Donald Trump won’t bring Tehran “to its knees” but acknowledging that they will hinder the economy and affect people’s lives.

Washington has reimposed an oil embargo and other damaging sanctions on Iran since pulling out in May from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

“America’s goal is to bring Iran’s Islamic system to its knees,” Rouhani told the parliament, according to the Reuters news agency, “and it will fail in this, but sanctions will no doubt affect people’s lives, and the country’s development and economic growth.”

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Rouhani presented an annual state budget of some 4,700 trillion rials ($47 billion), for the next Iranian year, which begins on March 21, according to Reuters.

“I warn those who impose sanctions that if Iran’s ability to fight drugs and terrorism are affected… you will not be safe from a deluge of drugs, asylum seekers, bombs and terrorism,” he said, according to Reuters.

“America’s unjust and illegal sanctions against the honorable nation of Iran have targeted our nation in a clear instance of terrorism,” Rouhani said in a televised speech from a conference on terrorism and regional cooperation attended by parliament speakers from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey.

“We are here to say that we don’t intend to tolerate such insolence.”

AFP contributed to this report.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s UN ambassador says relations between Moscow and Washington are “practically non-existent,” which he says is bad not only for both countries but for the world — and he sees little prospect for improvement anytime soon.

Vassily Nebenzia said in a recent wide-ranging interview with a small group of journalists that the Trump administration should offer some incentives to North Korea to move forward toward denuclearization, saying the situation “is stalemated at the moment.”

Russia and China have backed an easing of sanctions to spur momentum, but the US insists that North Korea must first make major steps toward eliminating its nuclear program.

“I’m concerned that it doesn’t roll back” to the 2017 era of increasing nuclear and missile tests and escalating rhetoric, Nebenzia said. “I think that the US hopefully is starting to understand that the situation may go [back].”

A man watches a television news screen showing US President Donald Trump, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at a railway station in Seoul on May 25, 2018. (AFP/Jung Yeon-je)

As for Iran, Nebenzia said he worries about US strategy if its sanctions don’t bring about the changes in behavior the Trump administration wants. He sees “a danger if they go to the limits.”

“I’m worried if anybody wants to go to war with Iran, and that is the enigma and the question — what is the strategy about Iran?” Nebenzia asked.

He said the US and Russia need to talk about global issues including strategic stability, terrorism, narcotics and regional conflicts, and he thinks President Donald Trump “understands pretty well that it’s better to cooperate.”

But he said because Russia has become a major issue in US domestic policies — accused of hacking and interfering in the 2016 US elections which is being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller — “and given the vulnerabilities that drift around this administration, I don’t see too bright prospects for improving [relations] any time soon.”

Looking more broadly at the US position in the world under President Trump, whose overarching policy is “America First,” Nebenzia said he doesn’t see the United States retreating.

US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, right, speaks on the sidelines with Chinese Ambassador Liu Jieyi, center, and with Russian Ambassador Vasilly Nebenzia after a United Nations Security Council meeting on North Korea in New York City, September 4, 2017. (Stephanie Keith/Getty Images/AFP)

It’s that the balance of power in the world is changing, he said, “and we definitely witness the rise in a multipolar world” where other centers of power not only Russia and China but India, Brazil and Africa “all want to be a part of the world governance and they want their voice to be heard and their interests taken into account.”

Nebenzia echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Syria was a good move, though he expressed some skepticism about whether the announcement will become a reality.

He said in the interview at Russia’s UN Mission late Friday that a pullout “will be helpful and conducive to the eventual Syrian settlement” of the seven-year conflict.

If and when the US leaves Syria, Nebenzia said, America’s Kurdish allies in the northeast should reintegrate into Syrian society, and “their rights and interests should be taken into account in the final settlement.”

Alluding to fears that Turkish forces could cross the border and go after the US-allied Kurdish fighters, Nebenzia added, “I think that’s the best antidote for them against any possible bad developments that might take place.”

Nebenzia said former US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice voiced his answer to the question of why Russia is in Syria: “The only reason Russia is present in Syria is to prevent another Libya, and that is true.”

He said “Syria was a hotbed of the terrorist caliphate” established by Islamic State extremists, and “our aim was not to let them flourish there” and to restore Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

US Marine Corps tactical vehicles are seen driving along a road near the town of Tal Baydar in the countryside of Syria’s northeastern Hasakeh province on December 21, 2018. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

Nebenzia said the greatest threat in today’s world is not Russia, China, North Korea and Iran as the US national security strategy claims but terrorism — and what’s needed most is “a true coalition to fight international terrorism.”

Responding to questions about Trump’s decision to cut the US force in Afghanistan in half, Nebenzia said: “Afghanistan is one country that demonstrated to the whole world that it’s impossible to defeat.”

“That was demonstrated by the British.That was demonstrated by the Soviets and now it’s the turn of the Americans,” he said.

Nebenzia said it “looks like there’s no military solution, and the understanding of that is gaining momentum.”

The government and the Taliban will have to talk to each other, he said, stressing that “the Taliban is part of Afghan society — you can’t write them off.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would maintain a strong lead over all other political rivals if elections were held today, including over a hypothetical party led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, according to a first public opinion poll taken after Monday’s announcement that a national vote will take place in April.

The poll, conducted by the Panels Politics polling agency for the Maariv daily newspaper, showed Likud taking 30 Knesset seats, the same as it holds today, whether Gantz enters the race or not.

If Gantz, who helmed the Israel Defense Forces from 2011 to 2015 and is seen as a centrist, were to run, the survey shows that he could garner 13 seats in his own party, making it the second-largest in the Knesset, but still trailing Likud by a huge margin.

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In that scenario, Yesh Atid would be in third place with 12 (up one from its current 11), followed by the Joint (Arab) List and the Jewish Home with 11 apiece (down from 13 and up from eight, respectively).

With Gantz in the race, the poll found, the Zionist Union, today the Knesset’s second largest party with 24 seats, would drop to nine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with outgoing IDF Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, at the military base, HaKirya, in Tel Aviv, February 12, 2015. (photo credit: Haim Zach / GPO)

Of the remaining parties, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu party would drop four of its 10 seats — possibly a reflection of a recent price hike on basic items and electricity.

The left-wing Meretz party would score six seats, as would a party led by independent MK Orly Levy-Abekasis, up from five seats and one, respectively.

Avigdor Liberman, who resigned as defense minister last month and pulled his Yisrael Beytenu’s six MKs from the coalition in protest of the government’s handling of border violence with the Gaza Strip, would lost one seat, the poll found. Liberman is reportedly eager to regain the defense portfolio in a future government.

Among the ultra-Orthodox parties, the United Torah Judaism party would win seven seats, gaining one, while the Shas party, led by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, would drop from seven to four seats — dangerously close to the minimum threshold for entering the Knesset.

Overall, the results show Netanyahu would be able to form a narrow right-wing government together with his current coalition partners, including the ultra-Orthodox parties. Partnering with Gantz and Lapid and other right-wing parties would boost Netanyahu to a wide majority without the need for ultra-Orthodox parties, which have, for decades, been a deciding factor in coalitions.

Head of the Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid gives a statement to the media in the Knesset on December 24, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

A poll conducted earlier this month showed that a political union between Gantz and Yesh Atid could pose a serious challenge to Likud and take 26 seats.

Should Gantz not enter politics, Zionist Union would still shrink to 11 seats, and Likud would remain in power with 31 seats, according to an October survey, which dovetailed closely with other polls published at the time.

Speculation over Gantz’s political future has swirled this year with the expiration of his legally required “cooling off” period, under which former top security officials must wait three years after retiring before entering politics. Gantz, 59, left the military in 2015 after a four-year stint as its chief that saw him command the 2014 Gaza war.

Though Gantz has yet to formally announce his entry into politics, he has reportedly gathered enough signatures to set up his own party and is said to prefer to run alone rather than join an existing center-left or centrist faction.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak said on Monday that he may resurrect his political career if a center-left political bloc were formed to challenge Netnayahu in April’s elections.

“If a center-left bloc coalesces that is led by a man who can both win elections and govern the country, he will win the election,” Barak told Hadashot TV news, hours after the national vote was moved up seven months by coalition leaders.

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak attends a conference marking the 50th anniversary of the Six Day War, at the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem on June 5, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

“It’s important to me that this bloc be formed — certainly I could lead it, I’ve led [a party] to victory in elections over Netanyahu — but I cannot make myself a condition to the formation of the bloc,” continued Barak, who also previously served as commander of the IDF.

“There is certainly a chance I will join — but I alone am not enough,” added the 76-year-old Barak.

Barak, a former Labor party leader who served as Netanyahu’s defense minister between 2009 and 2013, has over the past several years become an outspoken critic of the prime minister, with many believing he may be setting the stage for a return to politics.

Sunday’s Maariv poll sampled 502 Jewish and Arab Israelis and had a 4.3 percent margin of error.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.