The Trump administration and tough USA sanctions on Iran will be a key factor in toppling the “murderous” regime, according to the President’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Iran’s political leadership, lead by Hassan Rouhani, has faced a decades-long push for regime change amid allegations of abuse, oppression and even death against ordinary citizens.
And Donald Trump has so far presented a hardline response to what he called the “murderous regime”.
He controversially exited from the 2015 nuclear deal, instead choosing to increase tough sanctions on a country already hit by a crippling financial crisis.
The US President also issued a stark warning to China and India, saying they must stop buying oil from Iran or face sanctions themselves.
And now Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer and close friend, also lashed out at Iran’s so-called business allies – threatening to impose far-reaching tariffs and sanctions on any countries who continue to do business with Tehran.
Mr Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was speaking at the Free Iran: The Alternative rally in Paris this weekend, to crowds of thousands of Iranian resistance supported.
Led by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Iran’s so-called democratic Government in waiting, the rally saw 80,000 dissidents demand more is done to end the regime.
And speaking on the main stage, Mr Giuliani said Donald Trump and his unwavering support would be key to help free the people of Iran from this oppression.
He said: “Just a few months ago, the President of the United States—about whom there’s a lot of controversy, about whether he should tweet or not—took out his little phone and he tweeted.
“And he supported the protesters, like Ronald Reagan did for the protesters in Poland when Solidarity marched against Communism.
“And what happened there? Communism fell. Poland is free. The Iron Curtain evaporated.
“And the Berlin Wall was chopped down. That will happen now.”
The collapse of the Iran regime and government of Hassan Rouhani, he said, is “around the corner.”
But Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said regional oil exports may be threatened if the United States tries to pressure its allies to stop buying Iranian crude oil.
He did not elaborate further, but Iranian officials in the past have threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, a major oil shipping route, in retaliation for any hostile US action against Iran.
“The Americans have claimed they want to completely stop Iran’s oil exports. They don’t understand the meaning of this statement, because it has no meaning for Iranian oil not to be exported, while the region’s oil is exported,” Rouhani said late on Monday during a visit to Switzerland.
“If you (Americans) can, do this and see its result,” Rouhani was quoted as saying to a gathering of Iranians living in Switzerland.
Iran, the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, exports about 2 million barrels of crude oil per day.
As Trump threatened India and China with sanctions for continuing to purchase Iranian oil, Mr Giuliani too issued a terrifying warning to the west.
He said: “I say to those countries—to those countries that continue to support Iran, to those countries that do business with Iran: ‘You are paying for a regime that deprives women of their rights, that deprives children of their rights, and that murders people because they practice a different religion.’
“How can you do that? How much better are you than the terrorists when you are giving them money and propping up this regime?
“Women’s groups, in particular, all over the world should demand that those businesses that continue to do business with this regime should be boycotted.
“And we should stop doing business with them.
“Thank god my president, who I can now be proud of, my president turned his back on that very dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran.
“He said, ‘No, we’re not going to do business with the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. We’re going to reimpose the sanctions.’
“Everybody said it wouldn’t be enough. Gee, just America stops doing business with you when all of Europe is doing business with Iran and they should be ashamed of themselves.
“Well, maybe when the greatest economic power in the history of the world stops doing business with you, you have the kind of economic collapse that you now see in Iran and that is going to get worse, because I guarantee you the sanctions will become greater and greater and greater.
“This president does not intend to turn his back on freedom fighters.”
However, the sanctions could cause oil prices to soar, according to experts.
“We are in a very attractive oil price environment and our house view is that oil will hit $90 by the end of the second quarter of next year,” Hootan Yazhari, head of frontier markets equity research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC.
“We are moving into an environment where supply disruptions are visible all over the world… and of course President Trump has been pretty active in trying to isolate Iran and getting US allies not to purchase oil from Iran,” Yazhari noted.
“With inventories still declining and spare capacity uncomfortably low, there is very little cushion for any supply disruption caused by rising geopolitical risks,” ANZ bank told Reuters.
The Free Iran rally, attended by 80,000 dissidents, in Paris this weekend comes after anti-regime protests in 142 cities across Iran reached startling levels last week.
Thousands took to the streets demanding the country’s ayatollah stop spending money on proxy wars while the average family suffers.
Earlier at the conference, NCRI president Maryam Rajavi, whom Mayor Giuliani described as Iran’s next president-in-waiting, said: “The uprisings over the last six months have shown the wheels of change have begun turning in Iran.
“Nothing can now stop the determined people of Iran from obtaining freedom. The page has turned.
“There is no going back. The Iranian people are determined to overthrow this regime.
“The regime is extremely vulnerable. Regime change in Iran is in reach like never before. A bright future without executions, torture and suppression is coming.”
On Monday, it was revealed the Free Iran 2018 rally was subject of a foiled terror attack after Belgian police arrested six suspects in connection with an alleged bomb plot.
Two suspects in Belgium were intercepted by police on Saturday and were found with 500 grams of TATP, a home-made explosive produced of easily available chemicals.
The pair, believed to be from Antwerp, were also found with a detonation device in their car, Belgian prosecutors and the intelligence services said.
Source » express