Rouhani vows to ''proudly bypass'' US sanctions

Iran responded to the United States’s imposition of tough new sanctions on Monday with air defence drills and confident and confrontational rhetoric. "We are in the war situation," President Hassan Rouhani said in a television address as the sanctions snapped into place."We are in the economic war situation. We are confronting a bullying enemy. We have to stand to win."
"I announce that we will proudly bypass your illegal, unjust sanctions because it's against international regulations," he said. “I don't think that in the history of America, someone has entered the White House who is so against law and international conventions."
Reneging on the 2015 deal was a cornerstone of US President Donald Trump’s election campaign.Nuclear inspectors have regularly said Tehran has abided by the nuclear deal, which other signatories Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia have promised to uphold. But the US says that the pact failed to address issues such as Iran’s support of armed groups in countries such as Yemen and Lebanon, or its development of long-range ballistic missiles.
The move on Monday will restore US sanctions that were lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by the administration of President Barack Obama, and add 300 new designations in Iran's oil, shipping, insurance and banking sectors. Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton, said at a conference, last year, of the formerly as ''terrorist'' marked opposition group Mujaheddin e Khalq, that he wanted a regime change in Iran. Although Pompeo backed away from it later, Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has also publicly supported toppling the Iranian government.
The US is not simply intent on waging an economic war, but also wants to build up a military and strategic coalition against Iran. This seems to have been the most important item on the agenda of last week’s Manama dialogue in Bahrain, where US Defence Secretary James Mattis took aim at Iran.
Mattis is keen on the creation of a what amounts to an Arab NATO built around a regional network of Sunni Arab states in the shape of the emerging Middle East Strategic Alliance, potentially including Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel. The primary outside backers would be the US, France and Britain.
 Close Trump ally and Iranian foe Israel, which has repeatedly struck Iran’s forces in Syria, has thanked the US for the new sanctions.“President Trump's bold decision is the sea-change the Middle East has been waiting for," Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.
"In a single move, the United States is dealing a critical blow to Iran's entrenchment in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen. President Trump, you've done it again! Thank you."

Exemptions
 To what extend the Iranian economy will be harmed further by Trump's sanctions is yet te become clear.  Already Iran’s output has fallen to around 1 million barrels per day since May, since Trump officially pulled out of the nuclear deal. Iran’s already struggling economy has entered a nosedive.The rial now trades at 145,000 to the dollar, down from 40,500 a year ago.Prices have skyrocketed as a result, leading to bouts of civil unrest and power shortages both within Iran and Iraq next door, which is heavily reliant on its neighbour.
But the US saw itself obliged to give temporary exemptions to eight countries, including Turkey, Iraq, India, South-Korea and Japan,  so that they can keep purchasing oil and see stability in their economies and the global oil supply. Also China is expected to continue buying Iranian oil, although big Chinese state oil companies pulled out of dealings with Iran. Russia is expected top do the same and France and Germany, as well as Britain, have expressed their willingness to continue to do business with Iran. They are looking at the creation of a “special purpose vehicle” that would enable them to continue trading with Iran independently of the US dollar. It is yet unclear if that is going to work out.