Tehran, Iran – President Hassan Rouhani’s chief of staff said Biden’s administration is independent and will not follow Israeli orders like the previous US government, after Israel announced that it is reviewing attack plans against Iran.
The Israeli military is preparing “several operational plans, in addition to those already in place” in response to Iran strengthening its nuclear program in recent months, General Aviv Kochavi said Tuesday.
His remarks were seen as a threat to the new President of the United States Joe Biden, who has signed that he wants to re-enter the historic nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the powers of the United States. in 2015.
Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran’s chief of staff, dismissed Kochavi’s views as a “psychological war” and told Israel “in action, they have no plan or ability to achieve it”.
“Some officials in the Zionist regime believe that Washington would accept anything they say,” he told reporters Wednesday after a cabinet meeting. “But I believe the new U.S. administration has its own independence – just as other countries have their own independence.”
Vaezi said former U.S. President Donald Trump had hired his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who appealed to Israel and did his will in Washington.
The official added that Israel and others in the region such as Saudi Arabia are now lobbying against Iran in Washington, but “we must not take such things seriously”.
Vaezi pointed out that Iran held several weapons drills using missiles, submarines and drones in January, something he referred to as “a sign that we do not want war, but that they are bad at defending the country “.
Asked by commentators about the views of the Israeli military chief, First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said: “Israel is not at a stage to threaten Iran.”
Nuclear contract
Biden has pledged to revive Iran’s nuclear deal in 2015 with world powers pulling its ancestors unilaterally in 2018, imposing harsh economic sanctions on Iran.
But U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested the process will be slow and the U.S. expects Iran to act first. Iran, meanwhile, has said it will abdicate its nuclear promises if the U.S. removes sanctions first.
Rouhani noted Wednesday that it was the U.S. that withdrew from the deal in 2018, not Iran. “The [US] we owe it, not the other way around, ”he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who played a key role in shaping Iran’s hawkish policy under Trump, opposes a return to the nuclear deal or an agreement of any kind with Iran.