Tehran, February 12 (RHC)-- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the United States cannot tolerate being driven out of Iran by the 1979 Islamic Revolution and has been dreaming for 41 years of returning to this country, which is now the Middle East’s largest power.
Rouhani made the remarks while addressing a large crowd of demonstrators who had converged on Tehran’s iconic Azadi Square on Tuesday on the occasion of the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
The president said the Islamic Revolution was a choice made by the Iranian nation, and that America’s enmity towards the nation is rooted in its fear of Islamic power and the Revolution’s power.
“It is natural that the U.S. cannot tolerate the Islamic Revolution, the victory of a great nation and the expulsion of American superpower from this land, and it is also natural that the US has been dreaming about returning to this land every single night since 41 years ago,” Rouhani said.
The Americans, he added, “know very well how important Iran is. They are well aware of the role Iran plays in the region and of the fact that Iran is one of the biggest powers — or actually the biggest one — in the sensitive Middle East region. That is why American and Zionism have been acting as arch-enemies of Iran and its Revolution from day one.”
Rouhani further hit out at the United States for pushing ahead with a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which has failed to bring “the nation to its knees.”
The U.S. made attempts to plunder Iran’s wealth and make its people surrender but in vain, said the president, adding that the Iranians remained steadfast and achieved self-sufficiency in various sections.
Rouhani further praised the domestic achievements made in the defense sector in recent years. “Before the Islamic Revolution, 95% of the country's required arms were imported, while today all of what we needed is produced domestically,” he said.
President Rouhani called on the Iranian nation to further boost national unity, saying: “Whenever we have closed ranks, the US has faced defeat and [economic] flourishing has happened.”
Rouhani also censured Washington's assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani on Iraqi soil “as a huge act of terror and a violation of international law.”
He described General Soleimani as “both a commander on the battlefield and a senior diplomat in negotiations.” Rouhani said Soleimani was “on his way to a meeting with the Iraqi premier when he was martyred. He was not heading to a battleground but to a diplomatic field” when he came under attack by the United States.
The targeted killing of General Soleimani has sent anti-American sentiment soaring not only in Iran but also among regional nations.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called 'Deal of the Century' on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying the US “has gifted” the Palestinian lands to Israel “in violation of all international resolutions.”
Defying international outcry, Trump in late January announced the general provisions of the plan at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side.
The ‘Vision for Peace’, which all Palestinian groups have unanimously rejected, would, among other contentious terms, enshrine Jerusalem al-Quds as “Israel’s undivided capital” and allow the regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
