TEHRAN (AFP): Iran dismissed on Aug 24 Washington’s declaration of a massive economic pressure campaign, saying it disproves US claims to have dismantled Tehran’s military and nuclear capabilities.
“Your narrative doesn’t add up: You say that Iran’s military power has been ‘dismantled’, 100 per cent of its military factories ‘destroyed’ and its nuclear programme ‘buried’,” Kazem Gharibabadi, deputy foreign minister, said in a post on X.
Yet, he added, “there is a need for ‘the largest financial invasion in history’ and the mobilisation of ‘all institutions and powers’ of the United States! Is this a victory or an admission of America’s defeat?“
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wrote earlier in the Financial Times that Washington was launching the “single greatest financial offensive marshalled against an adversary”, calling it an “economic D-Day”.
Bessent posted on X that the measure came after the United States “dismantled Iran’s military capabilities, destroyed nearly 100 per cent of its military factories, and buried its nuclear programme”.
He is scheduled to explain the new US sanctions on Iran on Aug 24.
In response, Iran’s foreign ministry warned countries against joining the US economic campaign. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said taking part would “definitely have its own consequences”.
The United States and Israel triggered the Middle East war with a massive wave of strikes against Iran on Feb 28, triggering Iranian retaliation across the region.
An April 8 ceasefire ended nearly 40 days of intense bombardment, but control over the Strait of Hormuz soon emerged as a key flashpoint in the conflict.
Iran has controlled the vital energy conduit since the war began.
Reopening the strait, vital for global oil and gas supplies, has become a US priority, but Tehran insists the waterway will remain closed until Washington lifts its naval blockade on Iranian ports, removes oil sanctions and unfreezes Iranian assets abroad.
Last week, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would ramp up economic pressure on Iran “on an unprecedented scale”.
Washington has urged other countries, including China, to join efforts to further isolate Iran’s economy.
In an article published on Aug 24 in Iran’s Ettela’at newspaper, Tehran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said relations with China “have taken on deeper, more structural, and more comprehensive dimensions.”
Iran has faced US and international sanctions since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Trump has repeatedly pursued a “maximum pressure” policy of economic sanctions against Iran, reinstating the approach after returning to office in January 2025 following a similar campaign during his first term.
Iran has repeatedly dismissed the sanctions policy as a failure, insisting that economic pressure and threats will not force it to change course. -- AFP
