In a post on his X account on Monday night, Baqaei responded to remarks by the US Treasury secretary about “suffocating” Iran through economic sanctions, arguing that Washington repeatedly turns to sanctions when it is unable to pursue diplomacy and intensifies them when they fail to achieve their intended results.
“The US Secretary of the Treasury has boasted of ‘suffocating’ Iran through economic sanctions,” he said.
“Beyond its sheer pathos, the claim is a stark testament to America’s compulsive addiction to sanctions. Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy, it retreats into sanctions; and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose,” the Iranian spokesman said.
“This is no longer 'policy'—it is 'habit'; and more dangerously still, it is an addiction that has displaced thought itself,” Baqaei added.
“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains. The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making,” he stated.