On June 26, President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States of waging a “psychological, economic and political war” against Iran. “The U.S. cannot defeat our nation, our enemies are not able to get us to their knees,” he said at an annual conference organized by the Judiciary. He blamed “foreign media propaganda” for the devaluation of Iran’s currency, the rial.
On June 12, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres released the fifth report on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Notwithstanding the continued adherence by the Islamic Republic of Iran to its nuclear-related commitments, the agreement is unfortunately at a crossroads” following the U.S. withdrawal from the accord.
On May 24, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussed the new U.S. strategy to counter Iran following President Trump's decision to withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
On May 24, the Treasury Department designated nine individuals and entities that were procuring "export-controlled, U.S.-origin goods for sanctioned Iranian airlines." The sanctions also targeted procurement networks based in Turkey.
On May 23 and 24, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the State Department Budget for 2019. The hearings came days after Pompeo unveiled a new strategy to counter Iran after the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.
European leaders questioned Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's reasoning for the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and his call for a new, all-encompassing Iran deal. "Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the scope of JCPOA," said E.U. foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. "There is no alternative to the JCPOA."
On May 10, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif sent a letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemning the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions on Tehran.
In a poll conducted before the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, a majority of Iranians said they would support retaliation against the United States if it abrogated the accord. The IranPoll survey also showed that 92 percent of Iranians had no confidence that the United States would live up to its nuclear deal obligations. And only 54 percent of respondents were confident that other world powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- would live up to their obligations.
On May 10, Israeli jets struck some 70 Iranian targets in Syria in response to rocket fire attributed to Iran. It was Israel’s largest attack carried out in Syria since the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, according to an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson.
The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal was the top story in Iranian newspapers on May 9, the day after President Donald Trump’s announcement. His decision produced common cause among Iran’s diverse political cartoonists through the end of the month. The Islamic Republic has a broad political spectrum—ranging from reformists to hardline principlists—that is reflected in an equally broad range of media outlets. But they uniformly depicted the U.S. decision as self-destructive and Iran as resilient.
