Thread by @EllieGeranmayeh

1/Heated rhetoric between Washington & Tehran over recent days culminate in an ALL CAPS threat from #Trump directed at #Iran's president #Rouhani (flash-back to his tweet in Jan for N.Korea's Kim Jong Un on "bigger & more powerful" nuclear button). Trajectory deeply problematic:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1021234525626609666

2/#Trump's tweet response to #Rouhani saying yesterday:"America should know peace with #Iran is mother of all peace & war with Iran is mother of all wars".Rouhani left open prospect for diplomacy although SL #Khamenei said on Saturday further talks with US "useless" "major error"

3/In Middle East context Rouhani is right that Iran-US conflict is"mother of all wars".If you thought #Iraq invasion was bad: military conflict with #Iran would be devastating & costly:Iran roughly 4x size & 3x population size of Iraq in 2003.Niether Iran nor US interested in war

4/#Trump admin clearly pushing economic war with #Iran. Exiting #JCPOA 1st step. Next move=sabotage JCPOA. US hopes to throttle Iran's oil export revenues by pressuring other countries despite having little legitimacy/international consensus unlike 2011 when similar attempt made

5/#Iran asserted oil exports/market share is red line. #Rouhani made this clear in recent visit to Europe. Position backed by #IRGC (advocated for disrupting oil flows through Strait of Hormuz). Iran's Supreme Leader also indicated support for this approach on Saturday.

6/#Bolton-#Pompeo also pushing #Trump to back regime change policy on #Iran.Visible spike in info-comms campaign to meddle in Iranian domestic politics-incl incomplete,inaccurate & exaggerated info (uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa…) & see Pompeo's speech yesterday:

https://twitter.com/hdagres/status/1021284553338564613

7/#Trump has full support from Israel & Saudi Arabia.But as @ECFR 2017 report outlines there's growing divisions btwn Europe&US.European govs visibly distinguishing #Iran policy to make clear they do not support destabilising country of 80million people ecfr.eu/publications/s…