Iran Says US Maximum Pressure Strategy Doomed to Fail

By adopting maximum pressure strategy on Iran, US President Donald Trump tried to humiliate his domestic rivals and the international community to prove that he is a different person, said Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani.

Shamkhani further noted that the US president tried to say that he can gain the most at the lowest cost by pursuing his own innovative methods.

The maximum pressure strategy was designed to undermine the basic foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran including its leadership, the people, the IRGC and the foreign ministry, and the sanctions were used as the least costly measure to hit the Iranian authority, he added.

“The confrontational reaction of the people and the increasing stabilisation of the country’s economic conditions, besides the increase of effective regional and international movements, as well as the decisive positions of the leader of Islamic Revolution frustrated Trump from the start, and unprecedentedly increased pressures on him from his rivals and the international community,” underlined Shamkhani.

Shamkhani went on to add that sanctioning the Iranian foreign minister, after rejecting Trump’s invitation for a face-to-face debate, indicated that the strategy of “maximum pressure” has failed and its architectures have no choice but to change their approach and fulfil their obligations and respect the legal rights of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Active and effective diplomacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran cannot be sanctioned, and Trump or any of his allies cannot impede the reflection of Iran’s expressive voice in the world,” he concluded.

The Trump administration recently sanctioned Zarif as part of its “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.

The move, which went into effect on Wednesday, is one of the weirdest moves by Donald Trump since he withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal last year. US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said last month that Trump ordered him to sanction the Iranian diplomat.