Iran on Tuesday took advantage of President Donald Trump’s abandonment of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, portraying itself as a law-abiding state ready to work with traditional U.S. allies to avoid war.
In a defiant address to the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani paid back every bit of Trump’s earlier invective against Iran with interest. “It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can secure their interests better, or at least in the short term ride public sentiments and gain popular support through the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism and through xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition,” Rouhani said at the beginning of his 25-minute speech.
This was hours after Trump called Rouhani “an absolutely lovely man” in an early-morning tweet. And it was a message to Trump not to bother reprising the threaten-and-flatter approach with Iran that he used on North Korea.
John Kerry, Barack Obama’s secretary of state who negotiated the nuclear deal, warnedthe Senate in July 2015 that, “If we walk away, our partners will not walk away with us… whatever limited economic pressure from sanctions would remain would certainly not compel Tehran to negotiate or to make any deeper concessions.”
Rouhani’s fundamental approach on Tuesday, both in his speech and before, was to vindicate Kerry by exploiting every division between Europe and America that Trump created by violating the accord. Ahead of taking the General Assembly stage, Rouhani dismissed what he called multiple entreaties by the Trump administration for a dialogue that Kerry successor Mike Pompeo proposed could result in a comprehensive treaty. READ MORE
