Iran Guard: Fear of war makes US focus on economic conflict

The head of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard said the United States is worried about the prospect of war with Iran and has instead pursued an economic conflict.

According to Reuters, Major-General Hossein Salami on Wednesday said Iran had “completely closed the path for the enemy” in the military sphere, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

“In the current situation it is the enemies who are worried about the outbreak of war and this worry is apparent in their physical and tactical behaviour… At the current crossroads, the economic war is the main field for the enemy to confront us,” he said.

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Tensions have soared between Washington and Tehran since President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of a nuclear deal last year and reimposed sanctions on Tehran in a bid to reduce international sales of Iranian oil to zero.

The US has since accused Iran of carrying out attacks on six tankers in the Gulf over the past two months, which Tehran has denied.

Last month, the prospect of a direct military confrontation between the rivals arose, after Iran shot down a US drone it said had violated its airspace. The US, which said the drone was in international airspace at the time it was struck, aborted a retaliatory air raid, with Trump saying it would have killed too many people.

Hesamodin Ashena, President Hassan Rouhani’s adviser, warned Trump against listening to hawks in his administration, hinting aggression against Iran could make him a “one-term president.”

“We have unseated an American president in the past, we can do it again,” he tweeted, referring to Jimmy Carter whose bid for a second term was marred by the Iran hostage crisis in 1980.