US election carries a message for you: Iran to regional countries

Iran says the United States’ presidential election that toppled Donald Trump bears a message for the regional countries, which would take the risk of clinching enormous arms deals with his administration in the hope of buying security.

The election carries a “great message” for the region, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, addressing a press briefing that was held via a video conference.

He cited Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as warning regional countries against “taking the gamble to buy security from psychopaths, who only think of money and arms.” Khatibzadeh then reminded how Zarif had also warned that taking such a risk was like “placing one’s eggs in an unsafe basket.”

In 2017, Trump signed a whopping $110-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia during his maiden foreign visit. Two years later, the US State Department approved weapons sales to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Riyadh’s dedicated regional allies, worth almost $6 billion.

Observers say Trump’s loss in the polls has likely given rise to some questions about the future of these agreements and the quality of the regional countries’ US ties under his successor Joe Biden.

Trump also dedicated a good part of his tenure sympathizing strongly with Riyadh and its allies’ hostility towards Iran, and condoning their atrocities, while mounting huge pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Despite the blossoming military ties and anti-Iran alliances, the Islamic Republic would consistently urge the regional countries to seek out security solutions within the region itself. Tehran has invariably held that security was not a commodity that could be “bought” from extra-regional sources, calling on its neighbors to avoid friction among each other and refuse to trust foreign interference in the region.

Iran reiterates call for dialogue among neighbors ‘now that Trump’s gone’

Iran’s foreign minister has once again called on the regional countries to settle their differences through dialogue, especially now that the hawkish US president is leaving office.

Unheeded lessons

Notwithstanding the turnaround in the US ruling structure -- “some neighboring countries are still thinking about buying security and loyalty and are focusing on lobbying operations in other countries,” Khatibzazdeh said.

The spokesman noted how the Islamic Republic has constantly been extending its neighbors friendly gestures in order to prompt those countries that have isolated themselves from others to seek their way back to regional alliance and “pursue their calm in regional arrangements.”

‘Israel likes war, but at American expense’

The official separately addressed allegations by an Israeli minister that Biden’s attitude towards Iran could result in a war between the Islamic Republic and Israel.

Tzachi Hanegbi, the occupying regime’s minister for management of its illegal settlements, purported earlier that the new American president’s potential return to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and others that the Trump administration quit “will lead to a confrontation between Israel and Iran."

“Israeli officials are very much warlike, but want to do this [wage wars] at the expense of American troops’ blood,” Khatibzadeh said.

If the occupying regime had the ability to engage in warfare again, it would do so near Lebanon and Syria, he added.

The spokesman called it natural for the occupying entity to be seeking to foment crisis, noting how Tel Aviv had been acting so ever since it falsified its existence in 1948.

“All of Israel’s existence and reputation consists of creating crisis,” he said, and called Iranophobia “another column” underpinning Israeli politics.

While advising all not to take such remarks seriously, the official cautioned that Iran “does not joke” with anyone when it comes to the issue of its security, and noted how the country’s aggressors have received their timely responses whenever necessary and been forced to “seek sanctuary inside their lairs.”

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