“Our sole problem is Trump. In the event of war, it is he who will bear full responsibility.”
After Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei clarified on Friday that ‘death to America’ really means death to President Trump, Secretary if State Mike Pompeo and other “American Rulers,” a top adviser to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani shared a list of Trump properties on Sunday, including his Mar-a-Lago estate and resort in Florida.
https://twitter.com/ftmtjk/status/1213757430036926465
According to the Daily Mail, adviser Hesameddin Ashena tweeted a link to a Forbes article listing all of Trump’s properties in the US and Britain.
— حسام الدین آشنا Hosamoddin Ashena (@hesamodin1) January 5, 2020
Ashena, who heads up the Center for Strategic Studies – an Iranian think tank, echoed Khamenei’s talking points hours before dropping the Forbes link.
We have ZERO problems with the American people. We even achieved deals with previous US administrations. Our sole problem is Trump. In the event of war, it is he who will bear full responsibility.
— حسام الدین آشنا Hosamoddin Ashena (@hesamodin1) January 5, 2020
The singling out of both Trump and his properties come amid a series of threats exchanged between the two nations in the wake of the US killing of top Iranian commander, Quds leader Qasem Soleimani, on January 2.
Tehran has sworn revenge for Soleimani’s death and yesterday announced it was abandoning its remaining nuclear limits under the 2015 deal.
Today Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wept over Soleimani’s coffin as hundreds of thousands joined a funeral march in Tehran.
Speaking to the crowds, the military commander’s daughter declared that ‘families of U.S. soldiers in the Middle East will spend their days waiting for the death of their children’.
Trump has threatened his own retaliation if Iran hits US targets, warning of a ‘disproportionate response’ including cultural sites.
Today the president vowed in a capital-letters tweet that ‘IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON’ despite Tehran’s latest move away from the nuclear deal. –Daily Mail
IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020
The recent tensions were ignited on December 27, when an Iranian-backed militia group, Kataib Hezbollah, bombed the K-1 Air Base near Kirkuk in northern Iraq at the direction of Soleimani (per Reuters) – killing a US contractor and wounding several others.
Two weeks before the October meeting, Soleimani ordered Iranian Revolutionary Guards to move more sophisticated weapons – such as Katyusha rockets and shoulder-fired missiles that could bring down helicopters – to Iraq through two border crossings, the militia commanders and Iraqi security sources told Reuters.
At the Baghdad villa, Soleimani told the assembled commanders to form a new militia group of low-profile paramilitaries – unknown to the United States – who could carry out rocket attacks on Americans housed at Iraqi military bases. He ordered Kataib Hezbollah – a force founded by Muhandis and trained in Iran – to direct the new plan, said the militia sources briefed on the meetings. –Reuters
In response, US forces struck Iranian targets in Syria, killing 25 and wounding 50 – resulting in the New Year’s Eve protests at the US embassy in Iraq in which militia groups aligned with Soleimani caused significant damage to the compound.
