DUBAI, Feb 11: Iran marked the 47th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution on Wednesday as the country’s theocracy remains under pressure, both from U.S. President Donald Trump suggesting sending another aircraft carrier group to the Mideast and a public angrily denouncing their bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Trump made the suggestion in an interview published Tuesday night as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, long an Iran hawk, visited Washington to push the U.S. toward the strictest-possible terms in any agreement reached with Tehran in the fledgling nuclear talks.
A top Iranian security official planned to visit Qatar on Wednesday after earlier traveling to Oman, which has mediated this latest round of negotiations.
On Iranian state television, authorities broadcast images of thousands taking to the streets across the country Wednesday to support the theocracy and its 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But on Tuesday night, as government-sponsored fireworks lit the darkened sky, witnesses heard shouts from people’s homes in the Iranian capital, Tehran, of “Death to the dictator!”
Commemoration comes under crackdown
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In the streets, people waved images of Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, alongside Iranian and Palestinian flags. Some chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who earlier ordered the country’s foreign minister to enter talks with the Americans, was expected to later give a speech at Tehran’s Azadi Square.
Among Iran’s 85 million people, there is a hard-line element of support for Iran’s theocracy, including members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which crucially put down the protests last month in a bloody suppression that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained. Others often take part in demonstrations as they are government employees or to enjoy the carnival atmosphere of a government-sponsored holiday.
As the commemoration took place, senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani left Oman for Qatar. That Mideast nation hosts a major U.S. military installation that Iran attacked in June after the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
Qatar also has been a key negotiator in the past with Iran, with which it shares a massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
Speaking to the Russian state channel RT, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran still does “not have full trust for the Americans.”
“Last time we negotiated, last June we were in the middle of negotiation then they decided to attack us and that was a very very bad experience for us,” Iran’s top diplomat said. “We need to make sure that that scenario is not repeated and this is mostly up to America.”
Despite that concern, Araghchi said it could be possible “to come to a better deal than Obama,” referencing the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers Iran reached when former U.S. President Barack Obama was in office. Trump in his first term unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Trump suggests sending another carrier to Mideast
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The United States has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.
Already, U.S. forces shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a U.S.-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Trump told the news website Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the region, noting, “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going.”
It remains unclear what carrier could go. The USS George H.W. Bush has left Norfolk, Virginia, according to U.S. Navy Institute News. The USS Gerald R. Ford remains in the Caribbean after the U.S. military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. (AP)
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