Iranian state media was unperturbed when President Trump tweeted an all-caps message to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, but Iran's Quds force chief was not happy.
War with Iran would "destroy all that you possess," said head of special forces Qassem Soleimani on Thursday. "You will start this war but we will be the ones to impose its end." Reuters reports that he also mocked Trump's "ethics of night clubs and gambling halls."
On Sunday, Rouhani warned that "peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars," which Trump did not take well. Trump took to Twitter to issue his own threat, writing "NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE."
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Despite the all-caps aggression, Iranian media dismissed Trump's tweet as a "passive reaction" to Rouhani's statement. The odd series of outbursts seemed over, until Soleimani decided to send a message of his own during an impassioned speech on Thursday. "You have to be careful about insulting the Iranian people and the president of our Republic,” said Soleimani. "You know our power in the region and our capabilities in asymmetric war. We will act and we will work." He continued by telling Trump to threaten him, not Rouhani, and said that "Trump should know that we are nation of martyrdom and that we await him." Read more at Reuters.
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