ISTANBUL -- Iran on Monday vowed to resist any U.S. efforts to destabilize its government as one Iranian official accused the White House of waging "psychological warfare."
After Iranian President Hassan Rouhani remarked Sunday that "America must understand well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars," Trump wrote in all-caps on Twitter, "Never ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before."
In the aftermath of Trump's tweet, written on the same night Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced new efforts to undermine Iran's government, the value of Iran's currency, the rial, plunged to a record low against the dollar, observers said.
Pompeo said Sunday night in California that the U.S. would boost its social media messaging and support a round-the-clock Persian-language broadcast channel. He was strongly critical of Iran, calling its religious leaders "hypocritical holy men" who amassed vast sums of wealth while allowing their people to suffer.
The United States is also set to reimpose harsh sanctions after withdrawing earlier this year from the nuclear deal with Iran and world powers. That 2015 agreement, which was negotiated by President Barack Obama's administration, curbed elements of Iran's atomic energy program that raised proliferation concerns in exchange for an end to restrictions on Iran's oil exports and banking system.
Since Trump pulled out of the deal, other nations involved -- Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China as well as the European Union -- have reaffirmed their support for the deal and have been working to try and keep Iran on board. Trump has called the accord "the worst deal ever."
Iran has rejected U.S. calls to renegotiate the accord, and Rouhani has accused the U.S. of stoking an "economic war."
On Monday, the White House said Trump's tweet shows he is not going to tolerate critical rhetoric from Iran and insisted the U.S. leader isn't escalating tensions between the two countries.
"If anybody's inciting anything, look no further than to Iran," press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, adding that Trump has been "very clear about what he's not going to allow to take place."
"The president has been very, very clear, again, since day one what his objectives are, and he's certainly not going to tolerate the leader of Iran making threats against Americans, making threats against this country, making threats against Israel," she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who encouraged Trump's decision to exit the 2015 accord, praised the U.S. president's "strong stance" after years in which the Iranian "regime was pampered by world powers."
But in Germany, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger called for "dialogue" rather than belligerence.
"We call on all sides to exercise restraint and rhetorical disarmament," he told reporters.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Iranians' responses to Trump and Pompeo showed the widening gulf between the United States and other world powers that were part of the nuclear accord.
"Iran is angry since Trump responded to Tehran's engagement diplomacy by pulling the U.S. out of the nuclear deal," Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh said. Many in Iran have expressed frustration that while Trump has been hostile to a nation that agreed to a nuclear accord, he has seemed open to engaging with North Korea, which has openly boasted of producing nuclear weapons.
Falahatpisheh added, however, that the war of words between the two presidents was to be expected, because official diplomatic relations between the two countries have been frozen for decades.
"They express themselves through speeches since diplomatic channels are closed," said Falahatpisheh, who heads the influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, said Monday that Pompeo's speech, in which he likened Iran's rulers to the Mafia, "was hypocritical and absurd."
"These remarks are a clear example of [U.S.] interference in Iran's internal affairs," Tasnim quoted Qassemi as saying.
But the harshest words came from Iran's hard-liners, including Revolutionary Guard commanders.
"We will never abandon our revolutionary beliefs. We will resist pressure from enemies," the head of Iran's paramilitary Basij force, Gholamhossein Gheybparvar, said Monday, the Reuters news agency reported. The comments were carried by the Iranian Students' News Agency.
"Trump cannot do a d*** thing against Iran," he said. He dismissed Trump's salvos as "psychological warfare."
Another warning came from Mohsen Rezaei, chairman of Iran's Expediency Council, an advisory body to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
He said Trump should be cautious, warning that Iran has "50,000 forces" under its command -- an apparent reference to the tens of thousands of proxy forces that Iran supports in the region. The pro-Iranian groups include Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has waged battles with Israel in the past.
Military experts have long warned that Iran could use such militias to attack U.S. troops in places such as Iraq and Syria. Skirmishes this year between Israel and the Revolutionary Guard and its proxies have already raised the specter of war.
Another military commander, Kiomars Heidari, reiterated late Sunday Iran's threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for about 30 percent of the world's oil tanker traffic, according to the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.
The strait "should either be safe for everybody or unsafe for everybody," Tasnim quoted Heidari as saying.
Iranian analyst Seed Leilaz downplayed the war of words, saying he thinks it was "the storm before the calm."
Leilaz said he was not "worried about the remarks and tweets," and that "neither Iran, nor any other country is interested in escalating tensions in the region." He compared Trump's strategy to that used with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, where the two exchanged warring words before sitting down to a friendly meeting.
A Tehran resident, Mehdi Naderi, fretted that the U.S. measures and his own government's policies are damaging the lives of the average Iranian.
"America is threatening the Iranian people with its sanctions, and our government is doing the same with its incompetence and mismanagement," said the self-employed 35-year-old.
There was some confusion about how many Iranians saw Trump's tweet. Twitter is blocked in Iran, though Iranians often use software to circumvent the ban. Many refrain from using their full names to avoid detection.
"Mr. Trump, don't talk with the most nervous people in the world with caps lock on," Tehran-based Hamid said on Twitter.
Others quipped that the fight between Rouhani and Trump was unfair because the Persian language has no capital letters.
Iran's government is now "looking for someone to write Rouhani's reaction in calligraphy," joked U.S.-based author Siamak Mosulmani.
LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
One day after Pompeo announced the new initiative to target Iran, senior lawmakers from both political parties complained to him over what they see as a lack of transparency in dealing with the public, press and Congress.
In a letter sent to Pompeo on Monday, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee called for the State Department to resume daily press briefings. After Pompeo took over three months ago, the State Department has averaged less than one briefing a week.
"At a time of unprecedented, head-spinning developments for U.S. foreign policy, our relationship with our allies, and our role on the world stage, the lack of interaction with the American public and the world via the press is particularly concerning," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., wrote. "The American people deserve transparency."
Menendez said he would press Pompeo on the matter when he testifies before the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said the State Department had received Menendez' letter and "will respond accordingly."
Meanwhile, Pompeo is taking heat for not testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee this week.
"The Foreign Affairs Committee needs to hear from Secretary Pompeo soon on timely and critical issues, including Russia, NATO and North Korea," said Cory Fritz, a spokesman for the chairman of the committee, California Republican Ed Royce.
Nauert said Pompeo's schedule will prevent him from testifying twice in the same week. Pompeo on Sunday met with Iranian Americans at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in California, where he said Iran's government has "heartlessly repressed its own people's human rights, dignity and fundamental freedoms."
He said that despite poor treatment by their leaders, "the proud Iranian people are not staying silent about their government's many abuses. And the United States under President Trump will not stay silent either."
Pompeo planned to stay in California for a two-day meeting with Australian officials that began Monday.
"His schedule this week does not allow for a second day of hearings," Nauert said of Pompeo. "He holds both chambers in high regard and looks forward to continued cooperation with Congress."
Information for this article was contributed by Erin Cunningham, Bijan Sabbagh, John Wagner and Brian Murphy of The Washington Post; and by Nasser Karimi, Will Lester, Matthew Lee, Zeke Miller, David Rising, Amir Vahdat, Aron Heller, Lisa Mascaro and Hyung-jin Kim of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/24/2018