The U.S., Israel and Europe have been warned. Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday his country is in a full-scale war with all three ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s meeting Monday with President Donald Trump.
Pezeshkian said in an interview published on the website of the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the war is worse than Iran’s deadly war with Iraq in the 1980s, AP reports.
“We are in a full-scale war with the U.S., Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable,” he said.
His words echo proclamations by Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, General Hossein Salami, who has previously cautioned the West that death awaits it at the hands of a victorious Iranian regime.
Pezeshkian said the West’s war against Iran is “more complicated and more difficult” compared to the 1980-1988 war with Iraq that left more than one million casualties on both sides.
The remarks preceded a planned Monday meeting between Trump and Netanyahu during Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S. Iran is expected to be a key topic in the talks.
They also come six months after Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, and after France, Germany and the United Kingdom reimposed United Nations sanctions on Iran in September over its nuclear program.
Pezeshkian told the official site of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei what now lies ahead.
“Our dear military forces are doing their jobs with strength, and now, in terms of equipment and manpower, despite all the problems we have, they are stronger than when they [Israel and the U.S.] attacked,” he said.
“So, if they want to attack, they will naturally face a more decisive response.”
Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran that came during a 12-day air war in June killed nearly 1,100 Iranians including senior military commanders and nuclear scientists. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 in Israel.
The president said that “this war” was unlike past ones.
“This war is worse than Iraq’s war against us. If one understands it well, this war is far more complex and difficult than that war,” Pezeshkian said, referring to the 1980-1988 conflict between the neighbouring countries in which thousands were killed.
