TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Sunday that only “prudence and foresight” can alleviate tensions.

“Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his #B_Team, @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire. Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys,” Zarif tweeted.

Make no mistake:

Having failed to lure @realDonaldTrump into War of the Century, and fearing collapse of his #B_Team, @AmbJohnBolton is turning his venom against the UK in hopes of dragging it into a quagmire.

Only prudence and foresight can thwart such ploys.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) July 21, 2019

In a commentary on Saturday, the Guardian said when John Bolton, White House national security adviser and notorious Iraq-era hawk, heard British Royal Marines had seized an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar on America’s Independence Day, his joy was unconfined. 

“Excellent news: UK has detained the supertanker Grace I laden with Iranian oil bound for Syria in violation of EU sanctions,” Bolton exulted on Twitter.

Bolton’s delighted reaction suggested the seizure was a surprise, the Guardian said. “But accumulating evidence suggests the opposite is true, and that Bolton’s national security team was directly involved in manufacturing the Gibraltar incident,” the newspaper commented.

“The suspicion is that Conservative politicians, distracted by picking a new prime minister, jockeying for power, and preoccupied with Brexit, stumbled into an American trap,” said the article written by Simon Tisdall.

“In short, it seems, Britain was set up,” the paper said.
 
The newspaper added, “The consequences of the Gibraltar affair are only now becoming clear. The seizure of Grace I led directly to Friday’s capture by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of a British tanker, the Stena Impero, in the Strait of Hormuz. Although it has not made an explicit link, Iran had previously vowed to retaliate for Britain’s Gibraltar “piracy”. Now it has its revenge.” 

NA/PA