Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his government needs more powers to push back against an “economic war” being waged by the U.S., signaling the country is bracing for prolonged turmoil.
During Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, a supreme council was set up and “held all powers, and even the parliament and the judiciary did not intervene,” Rouhani told a gathering of clerics on Tuesday. The conflict, initiated by Iraq and referred to by Iran as the “imposed war,” killed a million people on both sides.
Today Iran “is in a state of economic war” and “we need the same type of power,” he said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, referring to U.S. sanctions directed against the country’s vital oil industry and other targets.
Tensions in the Gulf have heightened since the U.S. stopped granting waivers to buyers of Iranian oil early this month. That tightened sanctions slapped on the Islamic Republic after President Donald Trump exited an international nuclear deal a year ago that have triggered an economic slump and sent prices of basic goods soaring.
