Iran has warned that its armed forces will deliver a “crushing, regrettable and devastating” response to any miscalculation or conventional and emerging threats, as the US prepares a major new economic campaign against Tehran.
Al-Jazeera reported that Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Major-General Ali Abdollahi said in a message marking Iran's Defence Industry Day that Iran's armed forces are maintaining readiness across land, sea, air defence, space and cyber domains.
Abdollahi said developments in Iran's Defence Ministry in recent years had gone beyond military equipment production. He described the changes as a “deterrent defence industrial revolution” covering technology management, the defence economy, knowledge-based industries and advanced manufacturing.
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He said the changes were aimed at strengthening Iran's ability to respond to increasingly complex forms of warfare.
The warning comes as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prepares to announce new measures aimed at isolating Iran's economy. Bessent has warned US allies and other countries that continuing to do business with Tehran could bring economic consequences.
“You're either with us or against us,” Bessent said, warning that Washington would use its “full might and force” against countries doing business with Iran.
Bessent described the planned measures as an unprecedented effort to isolate Iran economically and weaken its ability to support regional proxies. CNBC quoted him as saying, “This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world.”
“It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision,” Bessent said. “We are going to squash the economy of this murderous regime.”
CNBC reported that Bessent later said the administration's objective was to “collapse this regime.”
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President Donald Trump has separately described the planned measures as an “ECONOMIC D-DAY”. In a social media post, he warned that countries allowing their financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide “any type of lifeline” to Iran would face “TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences”.
Tehran has dismissed the US threats. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the so-called “economic D-Day” as a “diversion from America's own crisis”.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mostafa Khoshcheshm of the University of Applied Sciences and Technology in Tehran said US economic pressure was unlikely to work, pointing to sanctions imposed on Iran over the past 15 to 16 years.
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