By Jubin Katiraie
Iran has threatened to turn the Persian Gulf into a “sea of blood” filled with the corpses of US troops, as tensions between the two countries continue to rise.
Top cleric Mohammad Ali Movahedi-Kermani delivered a sermon during Friday prayers where he warned Donald Trump that Iran is ready to “abandon all constraints” and go to war.
He warned Trump: “Think of an attack only if you want to change the colour of the Persian Gulf waters from azure to red. You are living in a glass house. You’d better watch out.”
Movahedi-Kermani, who was an advisor to regime founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini until his death in 1989, also repeated previous threats about bombing Israel’s nuclear reactor and referenced the US drone shot down above the Gulf last month by Iran.
He said: “You saw the corpses of US troops before your eyes, and told yourself they have hit the drone that was flying 65,000 feet above the sea.”
This came just after Trump warned Iran to “be careful” following the country’s twin breaches of the 2015 nuclear deal by breaking limits on its stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and the purity of the enriched uranium. The breaches have sparked fears that Iran is less than a year away from having a nuclear weapon and has prompted responses from the UK and France.
Tensions have been rising between the US and Iran since Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions on critical areas of Iran’s economy. However, there’s been a definite increase in dangerous rhetoric since Trump removed sanctions waivers on Iranian oil and designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terror group earlier this year.
The US has, since May 5, sent a carrier strike group, a bomber task force, a Patriot missile battery, and 2,500 troops in the Middle East to counter the Iranian threat.
On a related note, Mohammad Ali Mousavi Jazayeri, a member of the Assembly of Experts, said that Britain should be “scared” over its seizure of an Iranian supertanker just off the Gibraltar coast.
He said: “I am openly saying that Britain should be scared of Iran’s retaliatory measures over the illegal seizure of the Iranian oil tanker.”
The boat was suspected to be carrying oil to Syria in violation of EU sanctions, something which Britain was desperate to prevent in order to cut off some support for Syrian President Bashar Assad.
