Trump’s Emphasis on Pre-Election Remarks to Cause Crisis: Iran’s Top Judge

If Trump intends to press on with what he announced before the US presidential election, the world and the US itself will face a crisis, Ayatollah Amoli Larijani said at a meeting of high-ranking judiciary officials in Tehran on Monday.

As regards Trump’s threats to scrap the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), Ayatollah Amoli Larijani made it clear that lack of commitment to the deal by the other parties would not have any significant impact on Iran and the country will not face any challenge because the accord has not basically been in favor of Iran.

He also underscored that Iran will continue to carry out its independent policies by relying on the local forces, stressing that election of different people as heads of foreign states will not influence Iran’s conduct.

In March, during a speech to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC, Trump, who won a stunning victory in the US presidential election on November 8, said his “number-one priority” would be to “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.”

In August 2015, he said he would not “rip up” the nuclear deal, but that he would “police that contract so tough they (Iran) don’t have a chance.”

While many consider the JCPOA a major breakthrough in the improvement of ties between Iran and the West, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has made it clear that Tehran’s policy toward the US will remain unchanged regardless of the nuclear deal.

The accord took effect in January and was supposed to terminate all nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation has been hampered mainly due to US policies.