Senior Cleric: Trump Needs to Learn from US' Previous Mistakes

Rasa – A senior Iranian cleric deplored US President Donald Trump’s lack of political experience and said he would be well-advised to listen to his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who described the US flip-flopping on international agreements as “insane”.

News ID: 437392

Date: 27 April 2018 - 23:09

RNA - “The US president, who seems to lack enough political experience, needs to pay attention to these short words by the French president,” Hojjatoleslam Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi Fard said, addressing worshipers here in Tehran on Friday.

“The president (Macron), who is familiar with the situation in the region, the Islamic world and Iran, told the Americans at the US Congress that they should not repeat the same mistakes of their previous leaders in the face of Iran,” he noted.

The message of Macron’s remarks is that the crippling sanctions and political pressures against Iran have made the country a power, the cleric said, adding that the West’s stance towards Iran has changed since they realized the Iranian nation’s spirit of resistance.

Capping a three-day visit to the US, Macron repeatedly criticized Trump’s isolationist principles in a speech to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday.

Macron also conceded he had probably failed in his attempt during his trip to Washington to persuade Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Speaking to US reporters before leaving Washington, Macron said, “My view – I don’t know what your president will decide – is that he will get rid of this deal on his own, for domestic reasons.”

Noting that Trump had also pulled the US out of the Paris climate change accord – another commitment of the Obama administration – Macron said such frequent changes in the US position on global issues “can work in the short term but it’s very insane in the medium to long term”.

According to Tasnim News Agancy, Trump in January set a 120-day deadline for US lawmakers and European allies to “fix” the JCPOA or face a US exit from his predecessor Barack Obama's main foreign policy achievement.

Since the historic deal was signed by Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) in Vienna in July 2015, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repeatedly confirmed the Islamic Republic’s compliance with its commitments under the JCPOA, but some other parties, especially the US, have failed to live up to their undertakings.

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