'US after religious strife in Mideast'

Press TV - Iran's Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has warned of US schemes to spark religious conflicts in the Middle East in the wake of the Islamic Awakening across the region.

“The US strategy behind the regional crisis is the incitement of religious divisions, as over the past weeks we have witnessed the execution of the deceitful American scenario in Iraq and Syria,” Larijani said in his opening address at the open session of the Majlis on Sunday.

 

He made reference to the recent surge in violence and spate of bomb attacks in Iraq and Syria and described them as “part of a US scenario” carried out in collaboration with a number of regional countries.

 

Since Thursday, dozens of people have lost their lives in multiple explosions in southern Iraq and several neighborhoods in the capital city of Baghdad. 

In Syria, a Friday explosion targeted a police bus in central Damascus, killing and injuring dozens of people.

 

Larijani made reference to the “saber-rattling” by the US and its European allies to impose economic embargoes against Iran and argued that following the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, the deepening economic crisis in the US, and the spread of popular uprisings across the Arab world, Washington engaged in an anti-Iran campaign in efforts to manufacture a “mock enemy” with the aim of misleading the public opinion within the US and abroad.

 

The Majlis speaker pointed out that the failure of US strategies is rooted in the “global hatred” of Washington, though American officials fail to comprehend this fact and, instead, engage in a psychological projection.

 

The US and the Israeli regime have repeatedly threatened Tehran with the "option" of a military strike against the Islamic Republic, citing its increasingly self-sufficient nuclear program. 

Despite the widely publicized claims by the US, Israel and some of their European allies that Iran's nuclear program may include a military diversion, Iran steadfastly insists on its civilian nature, arguing that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.