Abbas Araghchi directly responded to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s beastman remarks in Paris on Tuesday by comparing him to Mike Pompeo, who was Secretary of State during part of President Trump’s first administration. “8 years ago a cartoon character like Pompeo said Iranians must follow White House diktat ‘if they want to eat’. Today, Rubio—whose fellow Cubans are victims of same policy—repeats that drivel,” he wrote on X. Araghchi stressed that, beyond the inhumane nature of such a policy, “it’s the delusions that are producing failed US policy.”

“Iran would love a deal,” Rubio claimed. “The problem is the conditions they continue to place are absurd. Like, they’re not even serious right now. So—but that could change, certainly. I mean, the pain that they’re feeling is a—eventually you have to eat; eventually you have to be able to pay your own fighters and your own security forces and so forth. Eventually the economic realities penetrate the skull of even the most radical lunatic. So I think as time goes on, I mean, that will have an impact.”