Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif outlined Iranian foreign and military priorities in an interview with CBS Sunday.
"You see, we are operating in our own region. That's why it's called the Persian Gulf, not the Gulf of Mexico. We are operating in our own region. We are a force for stability in our region. History shows that", Zarif said.
Talking to "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan, Zarif contrasted Iranian conduct with that of the US, who operates far from its shores.
"The United States is operating far from its shores, in our region", he said.
According to Zarif, Iran's military goal is fighting terrorism in the region.
"We have been helpful everywhere. We have fought terrorism in Syria. We have fought terrorism in Iraq", he said.
"Everybody recognises the role of Iran in bringing stability. I haven't seen them commemorating any martyrs from Saudi Arabia fighting Daesh, or [from the] UAE", he said.
He criticised US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who, testifying before Congress earlier in April, said that "there is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaeda — period, full stop".
"He's wrong because [the US] have aligned themselves with the wrong people in our region. And they cannot accept that they're suffering defeat because they simply chose the wrong side", he said, asserting that Saudi Arabia and the UAE — both US allies — are the ones responsible for creating terrorist threats in the Middle East.
"Their allies, their clients — Saudi Arabia and the UAE — have spent billions upon billions of dollars trying to create unrest, trying to support terrorist organisations, even in areas [in which] we are not present, like in North Africa", Zarif said. "You need to look at the trouble, where it actually is coming from. It's not coming from Iran. Who provided the ideology for Daesh? Who provided the ideology for al-Qaeda? Are they following our ideology? Come on".
"If Secretary Pompeo wants to make up these stories, then he can continue doing so, but that wouldn't resolve America's problems. That would lead to President Trump saying ‘we spend seven trillion dollars in this region and brought nothing but misery to ourselves and to the people of the region'", he said, referring to Trump's 2018 statement, in which he said US spent this amount of money in the Middle East.
"We have spent seven trillion dollars in the Middle East over a seventeen year period, and we have nothing. Nothing, except death and destruction. It's a horrible thing", Trump said at the time.
Commenting on a question about whether Zarif continues to talk to former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who Trump accuses of giving Iran "bad advice" — Zarif quipped that he does not take "any advice from any foreigners."
"President Trump needs to look at the history of Iran. We didn't survive 7,000 years by acting on the advice of foreigners", he said.
He lamented Washington's unilateral abandonment of the Iranian Nuclear Deal, as well as other treaties, including The Paris Accord and the INF, saying these steps damage the reputation of the US as a reliable partner for negotiations. He noted that should Washington proclaim 2 May the deadline for the rest of the world to stop buying Iranian oil, it will "show to the Iranian people that the United States is not worthy of being a negotiating partner".
Earlier in January, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the US a "force for good" in the Middle East.
"And it's the truth, lower-case 't', that I'm here to talk about today. It is a truth that isn't often spoken in this part of the world, but because I'm a military man by training, I'll be very blunt and direct today — America is a force for good in the Middle East," said Pompeo, speaking at The American University in Cairo.
