Trump being ‘suckered’ into conflict with Iran by US officials, claims Tehran

Iranian foreign minister points finger at Mike Pompeo, as Borzou Daragahi reports

The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif (AP)

Iran’s foreign minister has accused his American counterpart of attempting to “sucker” the US president, Donald Trump, into an armed conflict by leaking what he described as a false report of an Iranian assassination scheme.  

Mohammad Javad Zarif accused the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, of being the source of an article published by Politico on Sunday that cited unnamed American officials describing intelligence reports which allege Tehran was scheming to kill the US envoy to South Africa, Lana Marks.

The purported assassination plan would be in retaliation for the US killing of Qassem Suleimani, the late commander of Iran’s Quds foreign expeditionary force. Ms Marks, a handbag designer who founded an eponymous brand, is a member of the president’s exclusive Mar-a-Lago golf club in Florida.

Citing “press reports”, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday to warn that “any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”

Mr Zarif warned Trump that it was "time to wake up” to how he was being manipulated by Mr Pompeo.

"The habitual liar bamboozled [Donald Trump] into assassinating ISIS' enemy #1 by raising a false alarm,” Mr Zarif wrote in a tweet late on Tuesday, in reference to Suleimani. “Now he's trying to sucker him into [the] mother of all quagmires by leaking a new false alarm.”

Mr Zarif did not provide any proof that Mr Pompeo was the source of the leak. Mr Pompeo, in a television interview on Monday, declined to comment on the purported intelligence reports. “We know that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the world’s largest state sponsor of terror and they’ve conducted this kind of assassination before,” he said.  

Tensions between the US and Iran are increasing ahead of the October expiration of an arms embargo that Washington wants to keep in place. The US has struggled to extend the ban on sales and purchases of weapons to and from Iran, and has encountered opposition even from its own allies, who maintain that the lifting of the arms embargo is a crucial component of the 2015 nuclear deal they are attempting to salvage despite the Trump administration’s decision to pull out of the deal. 

On Tuesday, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed a peace declaration that some pundits have described as the strengthening of an anti-Iran coalition in the Middle East.  

Washington hawks fear that an end of the Trump presidency in the November elections would bring about a revival of the nuclear deal under Joe Biden. The deal required Iran to curtail its nuclear technology programme in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Iran has been ramping up its nuclear programme since the US pulled out of the agreement and began tightening sanctions. 

The habitual liar bamboozled [Donald Trump] into assassinating ISIS' enemy #1 by raising a false alarm

Javad Zarif

Tehran has a long history of targeting dissidents and officials of rival Middle East nations abroad, but it has not been known to target a US official by means of assassination. Documents leaked in 2015 suggested that Iran has an extensive intelligence network within South Africa.

Iranian media commentators have described the Politico allegations as not credible because Iran would never retaliate over the assassination of Suleimani by killing a woman.  

The Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, rejected the allegations on Monday and accused US officials of planting a story in the press in order to escalate tensions. "We advise American officials to stop using old and tired methods to create an anti-Iranian atmosphere on the international stage,” he said.