Military Adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Talks Tough

“If the Americans think of any plots, the Iranian nation will respond from the Mediterranean, to the Red Sea and to the Indian Ocean.” This quote was attributed on Friday to Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi, a former commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and today military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Both Washington and Riyadh blame Iran for an attack on Saudi Arabian oil installations last weekend that at least temporarily halved the kingdom’s petroleum exports. On late Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a solidarity visit to Jeddah, calling the attack an “act of war” and saying he was seeking to assemble an unspecified coalition against the Islamic Republic. The United States already leads a joint maritime patrol force aimed at protecting commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has seized or harassed oil tankers. “The US president [Donald Trump] will face the same fate as the six presidents before him who failed to impose their political will on the Iranian nation,” Rahim-Safavi added.