Iran has the means to punish US: Top general

A top military official says Iran has the means to punish Washington after the US Senate approved a new sanctions bill which targets the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on terrorism charges.  

“The ruling establishment in the US is a hegemonic, expansionist, bullying and blackmailing regime and the root of hostilities with us is based in these things,” Deputy Chief of Staff of Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.

“Since the early years of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation has been familiar with US enmity towards the revolution, the establishment and its effective organs such as the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps,” he added.

On Thursday, US senators approved sweeping sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program. The measure would also enforce sanctions and an arms embargo against IRGC.

The Senate legislation, hailed by Israel and its influential lobby groups in the US, still must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Donald Trump to become law.

Iranian officials have said the bill violates, “both in letter and spirit”, a nuclear accord, to which the US is a party. They have called for a strong response, with Iran’s parliament working on retaliatory measures, according to an MP.

“If the Americans and the Zionists do not change their manners, we will take more drastic steps – hereby announcing that we have the means of punishment at our disposal,” Gen. Jazayeri said without elaboration.

“Of course, America has to change its manners, or we will force the Americans to do that,” he told the Central News Service which is affiliated to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

Jazayeri said the world public opinion views “the US and international Zionism as the godfathers of terrorism.”

“Evidence suggests that Daesh and other terrorist groups have been raised in the lap of America and the reactionary regimes of the region,” he said.

The commander said US measures in intensifying sanctions on Iran and accusing IRGC of supporting terrorism “will make us fight the Great Satan with a more determined spirit.”

The “Great Satan” is the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini’s description of the United States, who led a revolution against Iran’s Pahlavi regime which was a close American ally.

“This is a historical irony that the terrorist Americans are calling the revolutionary and popular IRGC, whose mission has been fighting terrorism from its inception and supporting the Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian people as well as confronting homegrown terrorists, as a sponsor of terrorism,” Jazayeri said.

“The other strange thing is that the peoples of the world have not forgotten the current American president’s admission about the creation of Daesh and assistance to it,” he added.

Addressing supporters at a campaign rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in August, Donald Trump said then-President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton “founded” Daesh in the Middle East.