Trump ally Giuliani says end is near for Iran's rulers
US president's personal lawyer Giuliani tells exiled Iranian group: 'We are now realistically being able to see an end to the regime in Iran,' while US National Security Advisor John Bolton tells them they would be ruling Iran before 2019.
US President Donald Trump will suffocate Iran's "dictatorial ayatollahs," his close ally Rudy Giuliani said on Saturday, suggesting his move to re-impose sanctions was aimed squarely at regime change.
The former New York mayor, who is now Trump's personal lawyer, was addressing a conference of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella bloc of groups of exiled Iranians opposed to the Islamic Republic.
Since last month, when Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal, the rial currency has dropped up to 40 percent in value, prompting angry protests by bazaar traders usually loyal to the Islamist rulers.
"When the greatest economic power stops doing business with you then you collapse ... and the sanctions will become greater, greater and greater," he said.
At the same conference last year, John Bolton, who was appointed Trump's National Security Advisor in April this year, told NCRI members they would be ruling Iran before 2019.
Bolton, who at the time was with the American Enterprise Institute think tank, told Fox News in January: "Our goal should be regime change in Iran."
But, freshly appointed to the Trump administration, he told ABC's This Week in May: "That's not the policy of the administration. The policy of the administration is to make sure that Iran never gets close to deliverable nuclear weapons."
European countries which signed the 2015 Iran deal along with the United States, Russia and China, are sticking with it, saying the agreement prevents Iran developing weapons-grade nuclear fuel. But Giuliani said Europe should be "ashamed" of itself.
"This president doesn't intend to turn his back on freedom fighters. The end of appeasement is over," he told the conference of the NCRI, whose main faction is the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran (PMOI) once deemed a terrorist group by Washington and Europe.
Maryam Rajavi, who heads the group, told reporters: "Regime change in Iran is within reach as never before ... The wheels of change have started turning."
In Tehran, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Trump would fail in any attempt to turn the Iranian people against the ruling system.
"They bring to bear economic pressure to separate the nation from the system ... but six US presidents before him (Trump) tried this and had to give up," Khamenei said on his website.
Meanwhile, Iran is studying ways to keep exporting oil and other measures to counter the US sanctions.
With the return of US sanctions likely to make it increasingly difficult to access the global financial system, President Hassan Rouhani has met with the head of parliament and the judiciary to discuss counter-measures.
"Various scenarios of threats to the Iranian economy by the US government were examined and appropriate measures were taken to prepare for any probable US sanctions, and to prevent their negative impact," state news agency IRNA said.
One such measure was seeking self-sufficiency in gasoline production, the report added.
The government and parliament have also set up a committee to study potential buyers of oil and ways of repatriating the income after US sanctions take effect, Fereydoun Hassanvand, head of the parliament's energy committee, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
"Due to the possibility of US sanctions against Iran, the committee will study the competence of buyers and how to obtain proceeds from the sale of oil, safe sale alternatives which are consistent with international law and do not lead to corruption and profiteering," Hassanvand said.
The United States has told allies to cut all imports of Iranian oil from November, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.
Khamenei said the United States was acting together with Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that regard Shi'ite Muslim Iran as their main regional foe of trying to destabilise the government in Tehran.
"If America was able to act against Iran, it would not need to form coalitions with notorious and reactionary states in the region and ask their help in fomenting unrest and instability," Khamenei told graduating Revolutionary Guards officers, in remarks carried by state TV.
