TEHRAN – Chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the Iranian nation gave the U.S. another slap in the face, referring to the foreign-backed riots which ended after people rallied in support of the Islamic Republic.

“The Iranian nation in recent weeks gave the global arrogance, especially the U.S., another slap in the face… so that they return to their internal anxieties,” Major General Hossein Salami said on Wednesday, IRNA reported.

“Iran has stood for its national and Islamic values for four decades,” he emphasized.

“They wanted to tie maximum pressure, which means economic sanctions and psychological pressure, with internal incidents,” Salami said, highlighting the enemy’s failure to reach its goal.

He said the enemy thought the Iranian nation would stand up against their system, but its “assumptions about the Iranian nation is always wrong.”

The Iranian people recognize the implications of U.S. policies and supports, the general remarked.

“Crime, murder and brutality are the fruits of U.S. policies,” he said. “This issue gave the Iranian nation an awareness that the U.S. wants nothing but poverty and backwardness for all nations of the world.”

“This policy is dead in today’s world,” he said, adding, “It is the nations that isolate and undermine the U.S. and drive it to the sidelines step by step.”

Late on November 14, the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company (NIOPDC) issued a statement to recount details for new prices of fuels in the country, which was followed by another statement the following day by Management and Planning Organization chief (MPO) Mohammad Baqer Nobakht who said that the revenues from price increase will be paid in form of cash subsidy to 60 million people.

In what followed after the decision, protests erupted in several cities with people calling on the government to reverse course. The demonstrations, however, turned violent in some cities, with clashes between security forces and certain rioters damaging public property.

The damage caused to public and private property is tens of millions of dollars.

In order to put an end to the unrest, people from all walks of life took to the streets across Iran in the following days to condemn the acts of violence in certain cities by some hooligans and anti-revolutionary elements who derailed the people’s legitimate protests.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged the authorities to take good care of the affected people and assuage the hardship caused by the move.

MH/PA