President Obama in his wisdom concluded the nuclear deal with Iran in an effort to stop the Islamic Shia state from going ahead with development of nuclear weapons. Donald Trump has lambasted the deal and threatened to re-negotiate it, as he felt the deal has been severely flawed. The President has now approved fresh sanction against Iran, and this has angered Iran with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif accusing Trump of trying to "kill" the nuclear deal. As a reaction to these sanctions, the Iranian parliament has voted overwhelmingly to increase spending on its ballistic missile program and the foreign operations of its Revolutionary Guard, amidst chanting of “Death to America" echoing in the Iranian parliament.
Iran has been careful to state that the bill will not violate the terms of the nuclear agreement negotiated in 2015 but this decision has the propensity to increase tension with the USA. Military.new has reported this news.
Iran parliament approves spending bill
The IRNA (Iran news agency) has reported that out of 247 members, 240 voted in favor of the bill which will now be examined by the oversight committee called the Guardian Council which will rubber stamp the bill and then go to President Rouhani, who is expected to sign it. Iran will allocate nearly $800 million funding including the Revolutionary Guards Quds force which operates in Syria and Iraq under General Qassem Soleimani, who reports directly only to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and no one else.
The Guards are the elite Iran force and separate from the army. The bill also bans travel to Iran of U.S. military and security organizations and their commanders who in the Iranian view have supported terrorists in the region, namely the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian branch of al-Qaida and the Kurds.
Iran irked
The bill also proposes banning visas for American officials involved with the Iranian exile group called the Mujahedeen-e-Kahlo.
Many members of Congress and other politicians have met with the group and spoken at its rallies, and this support is a sore point with Iran. Iran will also try and manufacture nuclear propellers for its ships, but this is a long way off. Iran is in a belligerent mood, and there have been incidents between US navy and the Iranian coast guard on some occasions.
The Iranians had also taken into custody 13 sailors of a US patrol boat which had strayed into Iranian waters. Trump has for long condemned the Iran nuclear deal, as a sellout and one will have to wait and see how he goes about tackling Iran with the latest developments.
