IRG Chief Rejects Trump’s ’Heavy Psychological’ Ruse Against Iran

By Staff, Agencies

IRG chief Major General Hossein Salami confirmed that US President Donald Trump's imagination of Iran's situation reflected in his disparaging remarks in Riyadh Tuesday is too far from reality.

"Mr. President of the United States! What you said in Saudi Arabia was either due to your ignorance and lack of knowledge of the reality of the Iranian nation and the great truth of this great nation, or it was due to a deceptive psychological campaign to disillusion the Iranian nation," he said Thursday.

Gen. Salami further mentioned that “But know this, what is in your mental imagination and what exists in the reality of dear Iran are as far apart as the earth and the sky.”

Speaking in Riyadh Tuesday, Trump contrasted Iran’s economic situation under the sanctions with that of Saudi Arabia which he claimed "has turned dry deserts into fertile farmland". He offered Tehran “a new path, and a much better path, toward a far better and more hopeful future.”

Gen. Salami dismissed the remarks, saying the Iranian nation knows its friends and enemies well, with the US president being at the center of hostility with the Iranian nation.

"You have sanctioned the Iranian nation and want to prevent medicine from reaching the patients of this land. Of course, you will not be able to do so and you have not been able to," he said.

"Mr. President! A few years ago, you called the Iranian nation terrorists and said that Iran is a terrorist nation. How is it that you are now showing yourself to be a friend of this nation?" Gen. Salami said.

His reference was to Trump's remarks on the ITV television network during a state visit to Britain in June 2019 when he described Iran “a place that was extremely hostile when I first came into office”.

“They were a terrorist nation, number one in the world at that time and probably maybe are today,” Trump said during his first term in office.

"The Iranian nation considers you the murderer of their most beloved and greatest national hero, the martyred Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani," Salami said.

"Therefore, think carefully about what image of you exists in the minds of the Iranian nation," he added, touching on the "painful memories of America's oppressive dark domination" in the minds of the Iranian nation.

He cited the 1953 CIA coup that overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

"During the Pahlavi era, you were the ones who ruled over the political destiny of the Iranian nation in a humiliating manner, plundered the material wealth of this nation, and attempted to replace the values and foundations of this nation's religious culture with satanic symbols," Salami said.

After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, "you have been behind all the wars, seditions, sanctions, psychological warfare, and media campaigns to subjugate the Iranian nation to your political will", he added.

“You know neither the Iranian nation, nor the Islamic establishment, nor the foundation of Islam and Iran," Gen. Salami said.

The IRG chief said he would like to give the good tidings of "a huge achievement in the field of defense technology, which I will not talk about today" to the Iranian nation.

"We will unveil it in practice, but know that the balance of power has changed and will change," he said, without further detail