Rouhani says Iran needs "no one's permission" to build missiles
Source: Reuters
Iran will ask "no one's permission" to build up its missile capability, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday, in what appeared to be a defiant response to U.S. efforts to hamper the Iranian military.
Facing an election in May where he hopes to secure a second four-year term, Rouhani has had to defend himself from opponents who say he has been too eager to appease the West, after agreeing to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.
U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized the nuclear deal and said during his election campaign he would stop Iran's missile program. After Iran test-fired a new ballistic missile in January, Trump tweeted that it was "playing with fire".
Addressing an event showcasing some locally built military hardware, broadcast on state TV, Rouhani said: "The strengthening of the capability of the Iranian armed forces ... is only for defending the country and we will ask no one's permission to build up the armed forces, and to build missiles and aircraft."
<more>
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-defence-rouhani-idUSKBN17H0G2
FigTree
(347 posts)yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)We drop a 'mother of all bombs' to their north, 59 cruise missiles to their west, thousands of US troops all around them, we cruise their seas with a massively armed naval flotilla - and our political class threatens them daily!
You'd think the Iranians were paranoid or something.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)Mosby
(16,158 posts)United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 "calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."
So no, Iran is not free to do as it pleases.
http://www.un.org/en/sc/2231/restrictions-ballistic.shtml
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)They can ignore the UN or not and there's nothing anyone can do about it except by either persuasion or force.
Mosby
(16,158 posts)Because UNSCR 2231 is the international law component of the JCPOA.
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)International law is a something about which I know next to nothing. But I do know that sovereign political states are not like you and I and "international law" (whatever that entails) is not like the U.S. criminal code.
Regardless of how one labels or frames it, UN resolutions are routinely ignored by states.
christx30
(6,241 posts)Countries can violate international law with impunity, and nothing is done about it at all, because there are no consequences.
So now that they're back to building missiles, can we get the sanctions back?
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)they turned over 95% of their uranium stockpile, including all of their more enriched material, they dismantled or deactivated the vast majority of their gas centrifuges, abandoned construction of their heavy water reactor and filled it with concrete.
All sovereign nations have a right, an obligation even, to defend their territorial and political sovereignty.
I have no love for the theocratic, religious, leadership of Iran yet I appreciate the country's culture, history, and people.
Iran is in a dangerous part of the world surrounded by potential conflicts. They have a right, and again an obligation as a sovereign nation, to be prepared to defend themselves.
7962
(11,841 posts)Although i was definitely in the minority here with that opinion. Iran has never hidden the fact that they do as they please unless it hurts. the sanctions were hurting, so they signed the deal, never intending to actually do everything it said