Iran sent mixed signals Thursday as tensions with the US appeared to ease, with President Hassan Rouhani warning of a “very dangerous response” if the US makes “another mistake” and a senior commander vowing “harsher revenge” for the killing of a top Iranian general.
Both sides appeared to step back on Wednesday after Iran launched a series of ballistic missiles at two military bases housing American troops in Iraq without causing any casualties.
Iran said the attack was retaliation for the US strike that killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the architect of its regional security strategy, in Iraq earlier this week.
Rouhani said the strike on the bases was a legitimate act of self-defense under the UN Charter, but he warned that “if the US makes another mistake, it will receive a very dangerous response.”
In addition to launching the missile attack, Iran also abandoned its remaining commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, which President Donald Trump had walked away from in May 2018.
But Rouhani said Thursday that Iran would continue to cooperate with UN inspectors.
Senior Iranian military commanders struck a more defiant tone.
Abdollah Araghi, a member of Iran’s joint chiefs of staff, said the country’s Revolutionary Guard “will impose a more severe revenge on the enemy in the near future,” according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Tasnim also quoted Gen. Ali Fadavi, the acting commander of the Guard, as saying the missile attack was “just one of the manifestations of our abilities.”
“We sent dozens of missiles into the heart of the US bases in Iraq and they couldn’t do a damned thing,” he was quoted as saying.