Minister: Failure of Anti-Iran Hardliners Marked by Bolton’s Dismissal
Iranian Minister of Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said on Sunday that US President Donald Trump’s dismissal of his National Security Advisor John Bolton marked the defeat of anti-Iran hardliners in pursuing their hawkish agenda against Tehran.
In a meeting in the Northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad today, Rahmani Fazli said that Bolton’s sacking by Trump showed that the hardliners in the US failed to push forward their policies against Iran.
He added that despite the fact that all the US sanctions against Iran were observed by the European signatories to the nuclear deal of 2015, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s political, security and foreign policy conditions are satisfactory compared to that of six months ago or a year ago.
After the Iran nuclear deal, it became evident to the world that Iran signed an agreement with the world powers and remained committed to its undertakings whereas the US violated its commitments and withdrew from the JCPOA, Rahmani Fazli said.
He said that the enemies thought that the pressure on Iran would trigger public unrest across the country so that they said the Islamic Republic would not last to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in February 2019.
Public protests have reduced by 40% in the first five months of the current local calendar year compared to the preceding year, the minister said.
The country’s trade balance has improved, the inflation rate has reduced and the country has become capable of creating more jobs, he said, adding that all these indicate Iran’s accomplishment in the new planning.
If Iran moves in the same way, it will achieve sustainable growth, the minister said.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani underlined that the US president’s decision to fire Bolton indicated Washington’s political and moral failure against the Iranian nation.
Shamkhani said that changes in the positions and posts of officials at the White House would not change the perception of the Islamic Republic about the origins and nature of the US policies and measures.
He noted that the historic and deep-rooted hostility of the US government against the Iranian nation is beyond the role played by certain officials. As both Obama and Trump that were apparently different governments pursued the similar policy of sanctions against the Iranian nation.
Shamkhani added that Bolton was a salaried and devoted agent of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) terrorist group in the White House, and his ouster as White House National Security Adviser should certainly be considered as the US political and moral bankruptcy vis-à-vis the Iranian nation.
He said that the promise he made based on his stupidity and the illusion that the Islamic Revolution would not reach the age of forty was recorded in his political career and the US government as a document of blind biasedness.
Shamkhani went on to say that Bolton’s humiliating expulsion from the White House not only led him to the dustbin of history, but also made MKO’s plot to fail against the Iranian nation.
Head of SNSC reiterated that enemies of the Iranian nation should not forget that the unprecedented expansion of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s regional power and downing of the modern American UAVs in the Persian Gulf have occurred when Bolton was attacking and threating Iran, indicating that Tehran’s strategic policies are not affected by the hostile approaches of people like Bolton.
He said that firing or appointment of officials within the US administration had no effect on changing Iran’s view of Washington’s hostile intentions, and the criterion for the Islamic Republic to evaluate its real policy and performance is their adherence to international obligations and the removal of cruel and illegal sanctions against the Iranian people.
He added that the use of iron hand in a velvet glove has lost its function for many years, and today’s situation in Iran, which is the result of a continued”active resistance strategy”, shows that the American will can no longer overshadow the interests of the Iranian nation.
US President Donald Trump abruptly announced in a tweet Tuesday that he had asked Bolton to resign, noting that he”strongly disagreed with many”of Bolton’s suggestions”as did others in the administration.”
“I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week,”Trump wrote.
The tweet came just one hour after the White House press office said Bolton was scheduled to appear at a press briefing alongside Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Documents last year said that Bolton received $40,000 to participate and address the audience in a gathering of the MKO terrorist group in Paris in July 2017.
According to documents released by al-Monitor news website, the US Public Financial Disclosure Report in January 2018 for Bolton indicated that he had received $40,000 from the MKO as speaking fee in Paris gathering.
The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where they received support from then dictator Saddam Hussein.
The notorious outfit has carried out numerous attacks against Iranian civilians and government officials for several decades.
In 2012, the US State Department removed the MKO from its list of designated terrorist organizations under intense lobbying by groups associated to Saudi Arabia and other regimes adversarial to Iran.
A few years ago, MKO members were relocated from their Camp Ashraf in Iraq’s Diyala Province to Camp Hurriyet (Camp Liberty), a former US military base in Baghdad, and were later sent to Albania.
Those members, who have managed to escape, have revealed MKO’s scandalous means of access to money, almost exclusively coming from Saudi Arabia.
The MKO terrorist group specified the targets as Major General Qassem Soleimani, who commands the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Iranian Judiciary Chief Seyed Ebrahim Rayeesi.
The terrorist organization said it would “welcome” their assassination, adding that it desired for the ranking officials to “join” Asadollah Lajevardi, Tehran’s former chief prosecutor, and Ali Sayyad-Shirazi, a former commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces during Iraq’s 1980-88 war against Iran.
Earlier in June, a leaked audio of a phone conversation between two members of MKO, revealed Saudi Arabia has colluded with the MKO elements to frame Iran for the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf.
In the audio Shahram Fakhteh, an official member and the person in charge of MKO’s cyber operations, is heard talking with a US-based MKO sympathizer named Daei-ul-Eslam in Persian, IFP news reported.
In this conversation, the two elements discuss the MKO’s efforts to introduce Iran as the culprit behind the recent tanker attacks in the Persian Gulf, and how the Saudis contacted them to pursue the issue.
“In the past week we did our best to blame the [Iranian] regime for the (oil tanker) blasts. Saudis have called Sister Maryam (Rajavi)’s office to follow up on the results, [to get] a conclusion of what has been done, and the possible consequences,” Fakhteh is heard saying.
“I guess this can have different consequences. It can send the case to the UN Security Council or even result in military intervention. It can have any consequence,” Daei-ul-Eslam says.
Attacks on two commercial oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on June 13, and an earlier attack on four oil tankers off the UAE’s Fujairah port on May 12, have escalated tensions in the Middle East and raised the prospect of a military confrontation between Iran and the United States.
The US, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have rushed to blame Iran for the incidents, with the US military releasing a grainy video it claimed shows Iranian forces in a patrol boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of a Japanese-owned tanker which caught fire earlier this month.
It later released some images of the purported Iranian operation after the video was seriously challenged by experts and Washington’s own allies.
The MKO which is said to be a cult which turns humans into obedient robots, turned against Iran after the 1979 Revolution and has carried out several terrorist attacks killing senior officials in Iran; yet the West which says cultism is wrong and claims to be against terrorism, supports this terrorist group officially.
After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the MKO began its enmity against Iran by killings and terrorist activities.