TEHRAN- The essence of yesterday's speech by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his meeting with officials of the Foreign Ministry and Iranian ambassadors emphasized the important point that the Islamic Republic is not inclined to deviate from its foreign policy principles.

After the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, some abroad believed that the nuclear agreement, which was achieved through "heroic flexibility" policy, was the first step in Iran's diplomatic turnaround. Some within Iran also held this belief.

Therefore, the United States and its allies expected the Islamic Republic of Iran to give them significant points in other issues such as missile power and regional influence. The Islamic Republic's steadfastness on its fundamental foreign policy principles disappointed and angered them. Although some may want to attribute the US withdrawal from the JCPOA to Trump's madness, the reality is that even if a Democrat president were in the White House instead of Trump, the JCPOA would not have had a better fate.

Even during the Obama's presidency, the JCPOA was never fully implemented. Iran was fully committed to its obligations, but the Americans prevented Iran from benefiting economically from the JCPOA through bad faith and malice to the point where one senior official of Rouhani's government said that our achievement from the JCPOA was "almost zero" before the US withdrawal from the agreement.

Another point is that there is no serious and strategic difference between the two American parties regarding Iran. Biden, despite his promise to return to the JCPOA, has taken Trump's path in practice and raised the same unacceptable demands and ransom demands, albeit with softer rhetoric.
 
Iran did not succumb to US pressure and stood firm against sanctions and threats. This steadfastness, of course, has not been without cost, but its cost is much less than that of surrendering because US extortion knows no bounds. As an Iranian proverb says, if you say A, you must continue to Z.

The dignified steadfastness of Iran in the field of diplomacy is gradually yielding results and is being talked about as a new world order. In this order, the United States is no longer the sole player. If Iran had succumbed to US pressure or allowed Syria to be defeated by Western-backed terrorists and Iraq to surrender to ISIS, what would the situation in the region and even the world order be like today?

The formation of a coalition of powerful countries in the world, including China and Russia, who are not willing to bow down to Washington and are working towards a new world order, is owed to Iran's smart diplomacy and resistance. And the architect of this diplomacy is Ayatollah Khamenei, who said a few years ago that: I’m not a diplomat but a revolutionary. While he does not fall for Western promises or fear their threats, he guides Iran's diplomatic ship in a stormy sea full of pirates towards its new position. The secret of America's enmity and hatred towards this man lies in this point.