FM Zarif warns it would be ‘suicidal’ to go to war with Iran

In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with NBC News on Friday, Zarif said that the “same gang” behind the 2003 Iraq War were “at it again” in pushing for war with the Islamic Republic.

“I’m not saying President Trump’s administration, I’m saying people in President Trump’s administration are trying to create the same eventually and I believe they will fail,” he said.

Still, he said he hoped “some sense will prevail” but warned that “people will find out that it’s suicidal to engage in a war with Iran.”

Zarif also dismissed the idea of renegotiating the landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in May.

Pointing to the anti-Iran conference, which was held in Warsaw on Wednesday, Zarif said the Warsaw meeting was a “huge failure” because it showed, how “totally, totally isolated in the world” the US has become over Iran.

Asked whether Iran was open to revisiting the 2015 nuclear deal, Zarif said he saw no reason to do this because the original agreement was so complex and painstakingly negotiated.

“The nuclear deal was the result of 13 years of negotiations,” he said. “We produced not the two-page document that President Trump signed with the chairman of North Korea but a 150-page document,” he added, referring to Trump’s accord with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un last year.

Zarif pointed to agreements the Trump administration has pulled out of, such as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Paris Climate Agreement.

“You name it, they’ve withdrawn from it,” he said.