Bolton Says the US Will Squeeze Iranians ’Very Hard’

Local Editor

US national security adviser John Bolton claimed that his country will keep up pressuring the Islamic Republic after imposing new sanctions on it early this month.

Bolton said on Tuesday that Washington’s ultimate aim was to zero Iran’s oil exports despite backing down on the pledge after eight importers were given waivers when the sanctions took effect on Nov. 5.

"The objective has been from the beginning to get oil exports from Iran down to zero," Bolton said. "It is our intention to squeeze them very hard. As the British say: 'Squeeze them until the pips squeak'."

For his part, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo threatened to “starve” Iranian people, with prominent American thinker Ron Paul saying Monday that the threat was a rare instance of truthfulness in America’s foreign policy. 

China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea are the eight countries that have been exempted from the US sanctions.

Relatively, Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh said last week that the waivers were not enough, warning of “painful months” ahead for consumers because of insufficient supplies.

Zangeneh said the Trump administration has “artificially” brought down oil and gasoline prices ahead of midterm elections by coordinating an increased draw in US crude inventory, but the prices will “naturally” move up in the coming months.

Other Iranian officials said US claims of bringing Iran’s oil exports down to zero and replace it with Saudi oil are a bluff.

“It is a lie that Americans tell the people of the world that Saudi Arabia and some other countries would replace Iranian oil,” Iran’s Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri said.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team