One day soon, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Wednesday, the tables will be turned – and it will be Iran that will impose sanctions on those who today are sanctioning her.
“The hapless Europe needs gas and based on existing explorations, we possess the biggest share of the world’s gas reserves,” Khamenei said. “If sanctions are supposed to be the way, it is the Iranian nation which will sanction them in the future. Iran holds the world’s largest oil and reserves combined and when the time comes we will sanction them and the Islamic Republic is capable of doing that.”
Iran claims to have 33.8 trillion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, nearly 20% of known reserves.
The West has imposed numerous sanctions against Iran for failing to allow international inspection of its nuclear program, but the real reason for the sanctions was related not to nuclear bombs, but to attempts to topple the Islamic regime in Iran. Even if Iran were to halt its nuclear program, he said, the West would still impose sanctions. "I believe that if we allow them to dictate to us on the nuclear issue, they will still keep the sanctions in place because what they are against is the very foundation of our revolution," Khameini said.
Khamenei added that the US has contacted Iran's Foreign Ministry about the fight against ISIS, but Khamenei said that it was unlikely the Americans would take such a fight seriously – because the US was actually supporting ISIS. “This has been proven,” said Khamenei, by photos showing US forces “supplying arms to ISIS.”