Iran Reacts to Efforts by America to Pressure It

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Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised on Sunday that Iran would deliver “an unforgettable response” to any “improper actions” from the United States over an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

The ayatollah appeared to be responding to an American campaign to further isolate and pressure Iran, an effort that received a push on Sunday with reports that President Obama is pressing United Nations nuclear inspectors to release classified data showing that Iran is working on nuclear weapons.

The United States accused Iranian officials last week of plotting to murder the ambassador in a bizarre scheme involving an Iranian-American used car salesman who believed he was hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million. Two men — the Iranian-American, Mansour J. Arbabsiar, and an officer in the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps — have been charged in the plot.

Iran’s leaders have called the case a fabrication meant to distract Americans from their own problems, and The Associated Press reported Sunday that Iranian state TV had said that Iran’s Foreign Ministry requested consular access to Mr. Arbabsiar.

Norbert Bärlocher, a spokesman for the Swiss Embassy in Washington, said the embassy had no knowledge of whether the Iranians had passed such a request to the Swiss government. He said, “We represent the U.S. in Iran, but we do not represent Iran in the U.S.”

Asked if she knew of any request to see Mr. Arbabsiar, his lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said, “I have no such knowledge.”

The supreme leader’s comments on Sunday were his strongest yet about the case.

“If any American officials entertain delusions, they should know that any improper action, whether political or security related, will meet a decisive response from the Iranian nation,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, while speaking to university professors and students in Kermanshah Province in western Iran.

The ayatollah said that the United States was using the accusations to divert attention from its financial problems, suggesting that the protests over economic injustice sweeping the globe were an embarrassment to Washington. He said that “the people of at least 80 nations have expressed support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, and this is very bitter and difficult for American officials to accept.”

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also weighed in on Sunday, saying the alleged plot is just another of Washington’s “scenarios.” The semiofficial Press TV reported Mr. Ahmadinejad as saying that the United States makes “daily efforts to conceive scenarios against Iran. And, in this instance, it accused Iran of terrorism, but it should be clarified for the Americans that terror is the work of those that have no culture.”

Ayatollah Khamenei, according to Mehr News and IRNA, semiofficial news agencies, also issued a veiled threat to Mr. Ahmadinejad not to overstep his boundaries, addressing a power struggle between the two that has been going on most of this year. The ayatollah said, “Changing Iran into a parliamentary system from a presidential system” someday would not be a problem.

The news agencies focused on this comment. The implication, analysts said, was that Ayatollah Khamenei, the nation’s ultimate authority, was warning Mr. Ahmadinejad that he could abolish the presidency in the future.

NYT

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9 responses to “Iran Reacts to Efforts by America to Pressure It”

  1. 5thDrawer Avatar

    “Iran’s Foreign Ministry requested consular access to Mr. Arbabsiar”.  I’m sure they might want that ‘moment alone’.
    MAKE SURE whoever they send to the jail gets the ‘magic wand’, the naked-body radiation-scan, strip-search for scowling, and the groping of balls that we all have to put up with at ‘select’ airports because of the Assatolla and various other terrorists. Keep a camera on him all the time too … and a glass wall in between them when they are talking. We DO protect prisoners, right?

  2.  Avatar

    “Iran’s Foreign Ministry requested consular access to Mr. Arbabsiar”.  I’m sure they might want that ‘moment alone’.
    MAKE SURE whoever they send to the jail gets the ‘magic wand’, the naked-body radiation-scan, strip-search for scowling, and the groping of balls that we all have to put up with at ‘select’ airports because of the Assatolla and various other terrorists. Keep a camera on him all the time too … and a glass wall in between them when they are talking. We DO protect prisoners, right?

  3. I am an American of Lebanese descent, a Christian by religion, and sick and tired of the Iranians. Our government should have wiped out those sob’s, minutes after the hostages had returned to US soil, back in 1980. Since the Iranian revolution, they have been nothing but a continuous stream of assassinations, troublemakers, and overall BIG PAIN IN THE ASS for just about every country in the world. They killed the Marines in Lebanon, they prolonged the Lebanese “civil” war, murdered Rafih Harriri, been involved in mayhem all over the world, and they rule my beloved Lebanon, right now, thru their proxy, Hizb”assholes”. The world would be better off, if we just dropped a nuclear bomb right on the head’s of these sob’s. If there was ever a need for a nuclear attack on another country, this would be it. You take out these Iranian bastards, and the rest of the Middle East, except for Bashar Ass”hole”, and HIzbullah would be so grateful. They are NOT Arabs, they are PERSIAN bastards who have caused nothing but trouble for the rest of the world, and if we could find a way to get rid of them, at minimal injury/death to the good people of Iran, we should do the world a favor and get it done. Imagine what the world would be like, without the Iranian government, harassing the peace loving countries of the world….time to take care of these bastards, once and for all….

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar

      Idealist you are.

      1. Realist, my friend, not an idealist…..The US is going to make a move on Iran, and it’s not going to be pretty, as this country is getting fed up with the crap that’s been going on for over 30 years, and finally saying, enough….watch and see…it’s coming….

  4. I am an American of Lebanese descent, a Christian by religion, and sick and tired of the Iranians. Our government should have wiped out those sob’s, minutes after the hostages had returned to US soil, back in 1980. Since the Iranian revolution, they have been nothing but a continuous stream of assassinations, troublemakers, and overall BIG PAIN IN THE ASS for just about every country in the world. They killed the Marines in Lebanon, they prolonged the Lebanese “civil” war, murdered Rafih Harriri, been involved in mayhem all over the world, and they rule my beloved Lebanon, right now, thru their proxy, Hizb”assholes”. The world would be better off, if we just dropped a nuclear bomb right on the head’s of these sob’s. If there was ever a need for a nuclear attack on another country, this would be it. You take out these Iranian bastards, and the rest of the Middle East, except for Bashar Ass”hole”, and HIzbullah would be so grateful. They are NOT Arabs, they are PERSIAN bastards who have caused nothing but trouble for the rest of the world, and if we could find a way to get rid of them, at minimal injury/death to the good people of Iran, we should do the world a favor and get it done. Imagine what the world would be like, without the Iranian government, harassing the peace loving countries of the world….time to take care of these bastards, once and for all….

    1.  Avatar

      Idealist you are.

      1. Realist, my friend, not an idealist…..The US is going to make a move on Iran, and it’s not going to be pretty, as this country is getting fed up with the crap that’s been going on for over 30 years, and finally saying, enough….watch and see…it’s coming….

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