Special to WorldTribune.com

The United States “was forced into negotiating” the nuclear deal with Iran because of the “failure of the U.S. policy of sanctions and threats,” Iran’s foreign ministry said on Sept. 11.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham also shrugged off U.S. President Barack Obama’s claim that the Sept. 10 vote in the U.S. Senate that ultimately cleared the way for the deal was a “victory… for the safety and security of the world.”

Afkham called Obama’s comments “explicitly paradoxical,” Teheran’s official IRNA news agency reported.

“The U.S. president, fruitlessly, tries to claim the results of the nuclear negotiations (as a victory), but the truth is … the U.S. had no alternative but giving up its excessive demands,” Afkham said. “The world would definitely be safer when the U.S. administration ends its authoritarian behavior and prevents the destabilizing and warmongering actions by its allies.”

Many experts say Iran’s insistence that sanctions had failed contradict the fact that Teheran’s economy was near the brink of collapse as a direct result of Western sanctions.

Even after the signing of the nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian leaders have continued their anti-Western rhetoric. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others in the regime see the deal as a “surrender” to Iran by Obama and the West.

Khamenei recently published a book on how Iran outwitted the United States. Earlier this week, Khamenei once again referred to the United States as the “Great Satan” and also said that Israel would cease to exist within 25 years.

  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran claims U.S. had no option to concluding nuclear agreement, Marzieh Afkham, WorldTribune.com