'New US sanctions aimed at making Iran exit nuclear deal'

The US Senate has imposed new sanctions on Iran in response to what it claimed to be Tehran’s destabilizing actions in the Middle East. Iranian officials, however, have rejected the accusations and interpreted the sanctions as serving America’s malicious intentions against the country. Meanwhile, the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy has passed the general outlines of a motion to counter the United States’ “terrorist and adventurous measures” in the region. Following is a synopsis of an interview Press TV has conducted with Jim W. Dean, the managing editor of Veterans Today, and Jim Walsh, a research associate with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about Washington's new anti-Iran measure.

Jim W. Dean maintains that by imposing new sanctions on Iran, US authorities, Republicans in particular, are seeking to enrage Iranian officials in a bid to force them to leave the nuclear agreement with the P5+1 group of countries.

“I agree it really is a breach [of the nuclear deal]. Certainly, those in Congress know that. But, they don’t really care, because they were against the agreement anyway. So, they are actually thrilled to be using these new sanctions to try to mess the deal up again,” Dean noted.

He further defended Iran’s right to build up a powerful defense system, reiterating that the US is using Iran’s missile tests as another pretext, after the country’s nuclear dossier, to make a boogeyman out of Iran and consequently justify its new pressure tactics.

He said American officials were looking for an excuse and so they just “jumped on this missile launch,” emphasizing however Iran’s unequivocal right to put up satellites and improve its defense mechanisms. “One example would be to have early detection on a submarine launch missile so that it can put its military forces on alert right away. Or they can be able to see Israeli planes taking off on their bases and flying in their direction,” the analyst said.

Meanwhile, Jim Walsh, the other panelist on the show, warned about Washington's probable exit from the nuclear deal with Iran. He stressed that such action would badly damage US credibility on the global scene, especially in light of the fact that Washington left the Paris climate accord lately.  

Walsh said it is a cause for concern that since coming to power, President Donald Trump has aligned its administration with Saudi Arabia and has said many negative things about the nuclear agreement with Iran.

“His [Trump] national security adviser, his secretary of state, his secretary of defense, the chairman of Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, who is a Republican and doesn’t like the deal by the way, are all telling him not to do it; that this is a bad time and would make a bad situation worse,” he cautioned.

The US Senate has approved new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which Iranian officials say violate the nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. The US Department of the Treasury even imposed more embargoes on Iranian companies after the country launched a carrier rocket whose mission is to put Iranian satellites into orbit on Thursday.

Iran has repeatedly announced that its missile launches are not against UNSC Resolution 2231 that endorsed the JCPOA.

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