Iran warns Trump they’ll finish whatever he starts – Reuters

As reported by Reuters, key Iranian officials continue to antagonize US President Trump using public channels, with Iran’s special forces chief warning the US president that “if you begin the war, we will end the war”.

Key quotes

“A powerful commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday Donald Trump should address any threats against Tehran directly to him, and mocked the U.S. president as using the language of “night clubs and gambling halls”.  

The comments by Major-General Qassem Soleimani, who heads the Quds Force of the Guards, were the latest salvo in a war of words between the two countries.  “As a soldier, it is my duty to respond to your threats … If you wants to use the language of threat … talk to me, not to the president (Hassan Rouhani). It is not in our president’s dignity to respond to you,” Soleimani was quoted as saying by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.

“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine… Come. We are ready … If you begin the war, we will end the war,” Tasnim news agency quoted Soleimani as saying. “You know that this war will destroy all that you possess.”  Fanning the heightened tensions, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in a statement on Monday: “President Trump told me that if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.”

Iran’s Guards commanders have threatened to destroy U.S. military bases across the Middle East and target Israel, which Iran refuses to recognize, within minutes of being attacked.  Despite the bellicose rhetoric, there is limited appetite in Washington for a conflict with Iran, not least because of the difficulties the U.S. military faced in Iraq after its 2003 invasion but also because of the impact on the global economy if conflict raised oil prices.  

Mounting U.S. economic pressure, a faltering economy, sliding currency and state corruption are rattling Iran’s clerical rulers, but analysts and insiders rule out any chance of a seismic shift in Iran’s political landscape.”