TEHRAN — Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), has slammed U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and special representative for Iran Brian Hook as a source of threat.

“#Trump, Pompeo & Hook triangle has created an image of the #USA administration that its allies consider it unreliable, its rivals consider it threat & its citizens consider it inefficient & incompetent,” Shamkhani tweeted on Friday.

“The rule of irrational inefficient one is the source of the threats, only,” he added.

The Trump administration has adopted a “maximum pressure” policy against Iran after it pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement in May 2018.

Pompeo and Hook are among the top architect of the policy, which includes harsh sanctions and threats. They’re also pushing to extend an arms embargo on Iran, which is set to expire in October.

Last month, Pompeo said Washington technically remained a “participant” in the deal in order to use a mechanism embedded within the accord to make the UN maintain the arms embargo.

Hook also told reporters, “We are operating under the assumption that we will be able to renew the arms embargo.”

In a tweet on Thursday, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif likened Washington’s JCPOA argument to Trump’s suggestion to inject disinfectant to treat coronavirus patients.

“Those who muse about injecting disinfectant to ‘clean’ the coronavirus, also argue that they are a ‘participant’ in a UN Security Council Resolution endorsing a deal that they long ago ‘ceased participating’ in. Their own words,” Zarif wrote.

Hook wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that “one way or another” Washington would ensure the arms embargo remains. He said the United States has drafted a Security Council resolution and “will press ahead with diplomacy and build support.”

A resolution needs nine yes votes and no vetoes by Russia, China, the United States, France or Britain to be adopted by the 15-member Security Council. Russia has already signaled it is opposed to extending the arms embargo.

“If American diplomacy is frustrated by a veto, however, the U.S. retains the right to renew the arms embargo by other means,” Hook wrote, citing the ability of a party to the Iran nuclear deal to trigger a so-called snapback of all UN sanctions on Iran, which includes the arms embargo.

MH/PA