ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —US government economic pressure will not propel Tehran to the negotiating table because talks in this current environment means surrender, Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani the influential commander of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Monday.
Soleimani made the remarks at the 23rd Summit of Iran police chiefs in Tehran where he emphasized the importance of maintaining security as the country’s enemies step up actions to “disrupt the security” of the country.
“The enemy wants to bring us to the negotiating table through economic pressures,” Soleimani said in a reference to the United States. “And this negotiation is equal to surrender, but our people are astute and alert and believe that negotiation with the enemy in this current environment is total surrender.”
“We absolutely will not accept this humiliation,” he added.
The recalcitrant comments from the general responsible for Iran policy in the Middle East, coincided with the IMF projection that the inflation in Iran could hit 40 percent or even higher this year as a result of US sanctions and the removal of oil waivers.
Under ever-growing US sanctions, Iranian government’s coffers which rely heavily on oil revenues have been severely squeezed. The currency has lost more 60 percent of its value since last year. More than 1 million barrels of oil has been wiped out from its export volume decreasing it from 2.5 million bpd last April to just over 1.2 million bpd now.
Washington has rescinded the oil waivers given last November to eight major countries that were reliant on Iranian oil starting on May 2.
“Further tightening of sanctions on Iran will have an impact on its export capacity,” Paris based International Energy Agency said in a statement on global oil market on April 23. “Iranian shipments of crude and condensates are running around 1.1 million barrels a day (mb/d) in April, 300,000 barrels a day lower than March, and 1.7 mb/d lower than May 2018.”
Soleimani’s defiant tone is bound to provoke a reaction from Iran hawks in the Trump administration who see the 62-year-old general as the personification of the clerical establishment’s malign activities outside Iran borders.
“We will track down Iranian operatives and their Hezbollah proxies operating around the world and we will crush them,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged at the Heritage Foundation last May when he announced the new US strategy on Iran. “Iran will never again have carte blanche to dominate the Middle East.”
Iran has been listed by the United States as a state sponsor of terror since 1984 with the IRGC’s Quds force designated as a specially designated global terrorist organization since 2007. For the first time, the US designated for the all of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization on April 15. Reciprocally, Tehran designated US Central Command (CENTCOM) as a terrorist organization.
As the US pressure intensifies on Iran, the establishment in Tehran is closing ranks. On Sunday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, told the chiefs of police to crack down on smuggling across Iranian porous borders to stimulate the economy.
“The enemies intend to use two levers of pressure, economic sanctions, and disrupting the country’s security to hit us … and in this regard they use all their pressures,” Soleimani said on Monday. The outspoken officer has become Iran's top interlocutor with the United States as they've ratcheted up pressure.
“They should know that today the Islamic Iran is a strong country and it has matured in the field of military and security,” he added.