On Wednesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei announced that if the United States extends sanctions on their country that Tehran would retaliate against the Western nation. The threat comes after the House of Representatives re-authorized the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) last week to extend the sanctions against Iran for another 10 years. The measure is set to expire at the end of 2016 unless the Senate and President Obama pass the bill to make it into law.
“The current U.S. government has breached the nuclear deal in many occasions,” Khamenei said to a bunch of members of the Revolutionary Guard.
“The latest is extension of sanctions for 10 years, that if it happens, would surely be against JCPOA, and the Islamic Republic would definitely react to it.”
The House passed the bill just a week after President-elect won the Presidential election. Republicans in Congress unanimously opposed the agreement with Iran, along with about two dozen Democrats. Lawmakers on both sides have said that they hope the new President will bring a tougher stance on Iran and keep them from taking advantage of Americans as they have done since the signing of the deal.
The ISA was first implemented in 1996 as a means to punish the Islamic Republic and hurt its economy and try to halt their pursuit of developing nuclear weapons. The Iran Deal put in place by the Obama Administration agreed to lift sanctions if Iran agreed to allow the countries that signed the deal to monitor their nuclear dealings.
President-elect Trump has said on multiple occasions that he believes the Iran Deal is a “very bad deal.” Trump has threatened to “rip up” the agreement once he took office, leaving the Ayatollah Khamenei to say Iran would “set fire” to the deal in that case.
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