Zarif: B-Team Tried To Trap Trump into War with Iran, Prudence Prevented It

By Staff, Agencies

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the recent incident in which a US spy drone encroached on the Iranian territory in the Sea of Oman was the extension of previous efforts by the B-Team to drag US President Donald Trump into a war with Iran.

Taking to his official Twitter page on Sunday, Zarif said the B-Team has made efforts against the Islamic Republic in the past, including encroachments on the Iranian territory by an MQ2 spy drone in late May and phone calls made to attribute attacks on tankers off the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah port city to Iran.

Zarif noted that all those measures, instigated by the B-Team, were meant to lure Trump into a war with Iran, but “prudence prevented it.”

The hawkish “B-team” is comprised of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps [IRGC] announced on Thursday that its air defense force had shot down an intruding American spy drone in the country’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan.

The IRGC said in a statement that the US-made Global Hawk surveillance drone was brought down by its Air Force near the Kouh-e Mobarak region, which sits in the central district of Jask County, after the aircraft violated Iranian airspace.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that the recent encroachment on the Islamic Republic's airspace by the US spy drone is the "beginning of new tension in the region."

The American drone incident came a month after the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous and Norwegian-owned Front Altair oil tankers were struck by explosions near the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway.

In the last part of his tweet, Zarif pointed to the impact of the US economic sanctions against Iran, which he has frequently described as “economic terrorism,” noting that despite averting a war, continuation of economic terrorism by the United States continued to stoke more tensions in the region.

Trump pulled his country out of the multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], in May 2018 and re-imposed harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.