Trump Rehashes Anti-Iran Allegations in Nowruz Message


Trump Rehashes Anti-Iran Allegations in Nowruz Message

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US President Donald Trump sent greetings on Monday to Iranians celebrating Nowruz, but used the message to attack the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).

“I wish a beautiful and blessed Nowruz to the millions of people around the world who are celebrating the arrival of spring,” Trump said on Tuesday, but at the same time lashed out at the Islamic Republic and its officials.

The US president, who has threatened to pull Washington out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), called the IRGC “a hostile army that brutalizes and steals from the Iranian people to fund terrorism abroad.”

He also accused the IRGC of damaging Iran’s environment and suppressing civil rights in a harsh language that contrasted his last year’s Nowruz message, which had made no mention of politics, Reuters reported.

The IRGC was established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran to defend the country against foreign threats and to safeguard the values and accomplishments of the revolution.

According to Article 150 of the Constitution of Iran, “The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, organized in the early days of the triumph of the Revolution (1979), is to be maintained so that it may continue in its role of guarding the Revolution and its achievements.”

Apart from organizing military and security forces, the IRGC has initiated major development plans in Iran’s underprivileged areas and has been actively involved in disaster relief operations, environmental protection plans, and large-scale energy projects.

Trump’s paradoxical remarks about Iranians is not new.

In October 2017, the US president called Iran "a terrorist nation like few others" in a gathering of social conservatives in Washington.

In response, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said such a stance indicates Washington’s deep grudge and hostility toward not only the Islamic Establishment, but also the people of Iran.

“This foolish remark (by the US president) shows that not only Americans have enmity with Iran’s leadership and government, but even they hold grudges and hostility toward the very existence of a tireless and resistant nation,” Ayatollah Khamenei said on November 2, 2017.

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