Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has renewed his warning to Israel against a retaliation. At a military parade in Tehran on Wednesday, Raisi said with regard to the major Iranian attack at the weekend: “The first attack was deliberately limited and intended as a punitive measure, otherwise nothing would have been left of the Zionist regime.”
If Israel were to exercise even the slightest “aggression” against Iran, the Iranian response would be “devastating” and Israel would bitterly regret it, the Iranian president said, according to Tasnim news agency. Since Iran and its allies attacked Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles over the weekend, the leadership in Tehran has repeatedly warned its archenemy of a military response.
The government in Washington announced new sanctions against Tehran for the coming days on Tuesday (local time). Among other things, they are directed against Iran’s missile and drone program, as White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan explained. The Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Defense Ministry would also be targeted. The US expects its allies and partners to follow suit with similar measures.
Before Sullivan’s statement, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had already indicated that sanctions were in the works. The U.S. also wants to work with G7 partners and countries like China to limit Iran’s access to weapons-building supplies, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official told reporters. “We will be in discussions with all key suppliers around the world.”
According to its foreign representative Josep Borrell, the EU is also working on expanding the sanctions. The EU heads of state and government want to discuss this, among other things, at an informal summit in Brussels on Wednesday. This should affect Iranian arms exports, including the supply of drones to Russia, Borrell explained on Tuesday evening after discussions between EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Majority for sanctions
Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) told ORF that he expects a clear majority in the EU for sanctions, and that the EU must “take a clear position: on the one hand de-escalating, on the other hand drawing clear lines,” said Schallenberg. He calls for a “clear reaction from the international community towards Iran”: If a red line is crossed, there must be consequences.
He therefore also advocates for an expansion of the sanctions regime: “I don’t see why deliveries of rockets to proxies (allies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, note) do not fall under the sanctions regime. But it must be our goal be to avoid a wildfire.”
