WarSclerotic

Iran currently is confronting “the greatest pressure and economic sanctions of the past 40 years,” the Islamic Republic’s President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday, addressing crippling sanctions renewed by Washington last year.

In comments published on his official website, Rouhani stressed that “our problems are mainly due to pressure by the US and its followers, and the government and the Islamic system should not be blamed.”

He vowed that the nation would “endure” outside strong-arming efforts. “The US administration will definitely fail in its latest move against the Iranian nation,” he said. “Nobody can harm us as long as we follow the Supreme Leader.”

Rouhani spoke at a ceremony honoring the Islamic Republic’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as the country prepares to mark 40 years since the February 1979 Islamic revolution.

In May of last year US President Donald Trump decided to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions on Tehran. The move touched off a record drop in Iran’s currency, prompted an exodus of foreign firms, plunged the nation into a recession and renewed its economic isolation.

US President Donald Trump speaks about the partial government shutdown, immigration and border security in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on January 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump called the accord “the worst deal ever” and said it had given the US nothing. The administration bashed the agreement for its sunset clauses that allow certain restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program to expire, its failure to prevent Iranian ballistic missile testing and its continued support of regional terror groups.

Rouhani on Wednesday said “Iran’s highest political pride in [recent] decades and centuries was Iran’s powerful talks with the six major powers, and the victories that were handed over to Iran in various areas in the talks. It will never be lost.”

He asserted that the international community was on Tehran’s side, saying “the entire world is condemning the US conspiracies against the Iranian nation and support Iran in this regard.”

The European Union has condemned Washington’s renewal of sanctions and is working on a legal entity through which businesses could trade with Iran and avoid US sanctions.

However, there have been some indications that European powers are also gravitating toward the US position. Iran’s recent work on launching satellites into space has faced criticism from the West as a possible effort to advance its missile program, since the rockets used in the two programs depend on very similar technology.

The EU has commended Iran for sticking to its commitments under the nuclear deal, but has growing concerns about Tehran’s ballistic missile program, as well as its human rights record, its interference in Middle East conflicts and recent attempted attacks against opposition groups in Europe.

Illustrative: A group of protesters chant slogans at the old grand bazaar in Tehran, Iran, June 25, 2018. (Iranian Labor News Agency via AP)

Earlier this month French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Paris was ready to impose new sanctions on Tehran if talks on its missile program and its regional influence fail to make progress.

Iran’s economic crisis has led to sporadic protests against the government in the past year.

The protests have seen unusual scenes of demonstrators chanting against continued Iranian spending of billions of dollars on regional proxy wars and support for terrorist groups, which many say has meant less investment in the struggling economy at home.

In recent years, Iran has provided financial aid to Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Shiite militias in Iraq. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Tehran has poured a reported $6 billion into propping up president Bashar Assad’s government.

Rouhani has blamed the spontaneous demonstrations on “foreign media propaganda,” and has accused the US of waging “an economic war” against Tehran.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks Tuesday with Russian officials, seeking to avoid “friction” amid an Israeli campaign of air strikes aimed at keeping Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria.

Russian special envoy for Syrian affairs Alexander Lavrentiev and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin met Netanyahu and top Israeli defense officials at the his office in Jerusalem, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

“Among the issues discussed were Iran and the situation in Syria, and strengthening the security coordination mechanism between the militaries in order to prevent friction,” the PMO stated. “The Russian representatives reiterated Russia’s commitment to the maintenance of Israel’s national security.”

Netanyahu was joined by National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva who heads the IDF’s Operations Directorate.

A member of the Russian military police and Syrian government forces patrol near the village al-Hamidia in the Syrian Golan Heights on August 14, 2018. (AFP/Andrey Borodulin)

The two Russian officials arrived in Israel on Monday and first met with Foreign Ministry officials.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes in Syria in the past few years against Iranian and Hezbollah targets, and the Jewish state and Russia have set up a “de-confliction” hotline aimed at avoiding accidental clashes.

That mechanism was stretched when a Russian military aircraft was mistakenly shot down by Syrian air defenses after an Israeli raid in September.

Fifteen Russian soldiers were killed and the Russian army accused Israeli pilots of using Moscow’s plane as cover to evade Syrian gunfire, which Israel denied.

As part of its response, Russia announced new security measures to protect its military in Syria, including supplying Syria with an S-300 air defense system and jamming the radars of nearby warplanes.

Netanyahu has told Russian President Putin that Israel is determined to prevent Iran from entrenching militarily in Syria, according to his office.

Both Russia and the Islamic republic, Israel’s arch-enemy, are allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad and have helped his forces inflict numerous defeats on rebels and jihadists.

A former head of the Israeli Air Force on Monday said that only Russia, and not Israeli military might, can fully remove Iran from Syria.

“There is no military action that is going to get Iran out of Syria. Only a diplomatic effort can get Iran out of Syria, and this diplomatic effort has just one address. It’s called Russia,” said Maj. Gen. (res.) Amir Eshel.

The top US intelligence official warned Tuesday that Iran was likely to attack Israel if the Jewish state continued to bomb the Islamic Republic’s military forces in Syria, despite Tehran not desiring a direct confrontation in the immediate future.

“We assess that Iran seeks to avoid a major armed conflict with Israel. However, Israeli strikes that result in Iranian casualties increase the likelihood of Iranian conventional retaliation against Israel,” Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Coats was presenting the views of the US Intelligence Community — made up of 16 American intelligence services — to the congressional committee as part of the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.

This analysis by US intelligence services echoed similar concerns voiced within Israel about the increasing likelihood of an Iranian response to the Israel Defense Forces’ regular strikes in Syria.

Dan Coats, right, at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 29, 2019. (SAUL LOEB / AFP)

President Reuven Rivlin, speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv on Monday, also warned that Iran was likely to “intensify its responses” to Israeli strikes against its forces in Syria.

Satellite images released by the IDF of what it says are Iranian facilities inside a Syrian army base near Damascus, which were destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on January 21, 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

Israel has repeatedly warned that it will not tolerate Iran’s efforts to establish a permanent military presence in Syria, fearing it will serve as another front from which the Islamic Republic can threaten the Jewish state.

In order to prevent Iranian entrenchment in Syria, the IDF has conducted hundreds of strikes against Tehran’s forces in the country, Israeli officials have said.

According to the assessments of the US intelligence services, these air raids, however, have not deterred Iran.

“Iran continues to pursue permanent military bases and economic deals in Syria and probably wants to maintain a network of Shia foreign fighters there despite Israeli attacks on Iranian positions in Syria,” Coats said.

In general, the Israeli strikes have focused on destroying Iranian infrastructure in Syria — bases, vehicles and weapons — and not personnel, former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot said in an interview shortly before the end of his tenure.

In the assessment, the US director of national intelligence said if Israeli strikes kill more Iranian troops — as reportedly occurred earlier this month — the Islamic Republic is more likely to retaliate forcefully.

A photo provided by the pro-regime Syrian Central Military Media, shows anti-aircraft fire rise into the sky as Israeli missiles hit air defense positions and other military bases around Damascus, Syria, on May 10, 2018, after the Israeli military says Iranian forces launched a rocket barrage against Israeli bases on the Golan Heights, in the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies to date. (Syrian Central Military Media, via AP)

Coats cited as evidence the Iranian attack on the Golan Heights in May 2018, one month after a deadly Israeli strike on the T-4 air base in Syria, which the IDF maintained was being used by Iran, that killed at least seven Iranian soldiers.

In recent months, senior Israeli officials have begun claiming near victory over Iran in Syria, saying that the IDF raids have prevented Iran from establishing a 100,000-member fighting force that it had planned to form along Syria’s border with Israel.

The American assessment presented by Coats on Tuesday appeared to contradict this Israeli view, warning that Iran was not giving up its efforts to establish a permanent military presence in Syria.

Also on Tuesday, CIA chief Gina Haspel told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran was still abiding by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal despite the US pullout from the multinational agreement.

“At the moment technically they are in compliance” with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Haspel told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“I think the most recent information is the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to JCPOA as they seek to pressure the European to come through with the investment and trade benefits that Iran hoped to gain from the deal,” she said.

Gina Haspel, director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) testifies on Worldwide Threats during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 29, 2019. (SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Israel and the US have been pushing Europe to impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic and to strictly enforce the ones already in place on Iran for other non-nuclear nefarious activities.

But, as a number of European companies have pulled out under pressure from US sanctions, those countries have backed an EU effort to set up a special payment system in an attempt to continue trade and business ties with Iran.

AFP contributed to this report.