What Zarif said was a model of restraint and diplomacy. He said that if the US lifted crippling sanctions off Iran, then the "door is wide open" for future negotiations.
Calling for the avoidance of war, the Iranian diplomat pointed out that it was the United States, not Iran, that had undermined diplomacy by walking away from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers, reported NBC.
"It is the United States that left the bargaining table. And they're always welcome to return," Zarif added.
What Pompeo calls "malign propaganda" many other people would view as an accurate, if restrained, telling by the Iranian diplomat of how it really is.
Given the unlawful aggression that the Trump administration is wielding against Iran in terms of economic warfare on the country's vital oil trade and in terms of military force buildup in the Persian Gulf, including nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, what Iran is demonstrating is an immense discipline to maintain regional and world peace.
Iran's conditions for possible negotiations are eminently reasonable. They include being respected as a sovereign nation and entering into dialogue as a mutual party where discussions can be held on the basis of facts and international law.
Pompeo's supreme arrogance about America's presumed exceptional entitlements and superiority are, unfortunately, a sign that Washington is incapable of being a normal state. The real "theocratic tyranny" is in Washington where it has the perverse belief that it has divine right to destroy other nations if they don't grovel sufficiently at its feet. But those feet are made of the proverbial clay signifying a doomed power, as Iran's dignity and defiance is revealing.
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