As the Trump administration pushes the U.N. Security Council to issue "snapback" sanctions targeting Iran, the Iranian government on Thursday unveiled two new medium-range missiles.
"Cruise missiles are of particular importance to us. The fact that we have increased the range from 300 [kilometers] to 1,000 in less than two years shows the country is on the path of production and self-sufficiency in this field," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday, according to the nation's Tasnim News Agency.
"We have made great progress in the field of strategic and deterrent weaponry," Rouhani added.
The news agency reported that one of the new missiles has a range of about 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), while the other's range is 1,400 kilometers (870 miles). The longer-range missile has been dubbed "Martyr Hajj Qassem Soleimani," after Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the U.S. on Trump's orders in January.
Meanwhile, Trump's secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has been dispatched to the U.N. Security Council to enforce "snapback" sanctions because Iran has ceased compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal. The Trump administration effort aims to reinstate all of the international sanctions that were lifted when the treaty was reached during the Obama administration.
However, the deal's other signatories—the European Union, Germany, France, China, Russia and the United Kingdom—do not believe the U.S. has the ability to call for "snapback" sanctions, as Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018. The U.S. has already reimplemented its own sanctions targeting Iran, but the international community has largely rejected the U.S. effort to target Iran.
"The prior administration left no doubt that the U.S. has the ability to snap back sanctions on Iran," Pompeo tweeted Thursday. "That's what we intend to do. As President @realDonaldTrump said, we will not continue down a path whose predictable end is more violence, terror, and a nuclear armed Iran."
Newsweek reached out to the State Department for further comment, but it did not respond in time for publication.
Trump has been a longtime critic of the Iran nuclear deal, which offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. Consistent reports from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog showed that Iran remained in compliance with the treaty until a full year after the U.S. withdrew and reimposed sanctions. Iranian leaders then decided to begin stepping back from compliance, completely ending their observance following the assassination of Soleimani.
Ahead of Pompeo's effort on "snapback" sanctions at the Security Council, Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran's permanent ambassador to the U.N., said that the effort would fail. "The int'l community rejected US' right to snapback last week. The US shouldn't try its luck. It'll only be humiliated again," he tweeted.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Jason Lemon is a Weekend Editor at Newsweek based in Brooklyn, New York. Prior to taking on the editor role, Jason's reporting focused on ... Read more
