The military adviser to Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei vows the response to killing Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani will be " against military sites."
"The response for sure will be military and against military sites," Hossein Dehghan, Iran's former defense minister and current adviser, told CNN in an exclusive interview in Tehran, Iran. "Let me tell you one thing: Our leadership has officially announced that we have never been seeking war and we will not be seeking war.
"It was America that has started the war. Therefore, they should accept appropriate reactions to their actions. The only thing that can end this period of war is for the Americans to receive a blow that is equal to the blow they have inflicted. Afterward they should not seek a new cycle."
In CNN's sitdown with a man threating violence on the U.S., Dehghan also ripped President Donald Trump's tweets after the strike as "ridiculous and absurd," including the vow of 52 targets to match the number of hostages taken in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy.
"[Trump] doesn't know international law," Dehghan added to CNN. "He doesn't recognize U.N. resolutions either. Basically he is a veritable gangster and a gambler. He is no politician he has no mental stability."
Dehghan pointed to United National resolution 2347 amid the tweeted threat to cultural sites being among the 52 targets.
"If [Trump] wants to imposed rule, logic, and rationality over his decision he should accept that he is a war criminal and must be tried in a relevant court," Dehghan told CNN.
"For sure no American military staff, no American political center, no American military base, no American vessel will be safe – and they are accessible to us," Dehghan concluded to CNN.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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