Iranian President Hassan Rouhani vowed to expand Iran's ballistic missile program despite President Trump slamming Iran in his speech announcing that he will decertify Iran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
Trump had charged that the Islamic Republic "deploys and proliferates missiles that threaten American troops and our allies".
Speaking on Iranian television, Rouhani dismissed Trump's “insults and fake accusations", and said that Iran would stick to the nuclear agreement as long as it was beneficial. Rouhani also defended the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after Trump called it "the Iranian supreme leader's corrupt personal terror force and militia and authorized the US Treasury to sanction the IRGC".
"The Iranian nation has not and will never bow to any foreign pressure," Rouhani said. "Iran and the deal are stronger than ever. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps will continue its fight against regional terrorists."
"What was heard today was nothing but the repetition of baseless accusations and swear words that they have repeated for years," Rouhani continued. "The Iranian nation does not expect anything else from you," he added.
Rouhani also contended that Trump had distanced the United States from the international community by unilaterally opposing the Iran deal. "Today the United States is more than ever isolated in its opposition to the nuclear deal and in its plots against the Iranian people decertifying the Iran agreement," said Rouhani.
The Iranian Prime Minister contended that Trump did not have the authority to scrap the Iran deal. "He has not studied international law. Can a president annul a multilateral international treaty on his own?" Rouhani asked.
"Apparently he doesn't know that this agreement is not a bilateral agreement solely between Iran and the United States."
Trump had earlier dedicated a large part of his speech at the White House to calling out the Revolutionary Guards, which he said are responsible for nefarious activities all over the world. According to Trump, the IRGC "has hijacked large portions of Iran's economy and resized massive religious endowments to fund war and terror abroad. This includes arming the Syrian dictator, supplying proxies and partners with missiles and weapons to attack civilians in the region and even plotting to bomb a popular restaurant, right here, in Washington D.C."
Trump was likely referring to an Iranian-sponsored plot in 2011 foiled by the Drug Enforcement Agency that would have bombed the Israeli and Saudi Arabian embassies in Washington D.C.
Soon after Trump's speech, the United States Treasury announced that it would slap sanctions on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in addition to sanctioning four organizations it says supports Iran's military.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called on businesses not to deal with the Islamic Republic, saying that "we urge the private sector to recognize that the IRGC permeates much of the Iranian economy, and those who transact with IRGC-controlled companies do so at great risk".
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)