Commander of Iran's Basij (volunteer) force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi underscored the country's capabilities in building and producing different commodities despite the western sanctions, and urged the government to impose an oil boycott to show Iran's power to the US.
"We know that we don’t need foreign countries. The hell with them (the world powers) if they don't want to reach an agreement (with Iran) and want to impose sanctions. Let us cripple them by closing the oil valves," Naqdi said, addressing a forum in Tehran on Monday.
He downplayed the western sanctions against Iran, and said they cannot impose food embargos against a country which has 16 neighbors.
Naqdi also stressed Iran's huge progress in building different military tools, and said, "Despite the military sanctions, there is no weapon that our Armed Forces cannot manufacture it."
In relevant remarks on Thursday, Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined that western sanctions had backfired as they had given Tehran a strong feeling of self-reliance in different sectors, particularly in economic sector.
"The sanctions imposed on Iran have become a tool for further growth and prosperity of our economy," General Salami said.
He noted that the West wanted to portray an inefficient, unsuccessful and defeated model out of Iran and the western countries were not interested to see Iran as a role model for the Muslim countries.
In similar remarks earlier this month, Salami underlined enemies' failure in implementing their different plots against Iran, and said the country is now growing into a world power.
"Today, the regional Iran is turning into a global Iran," Salami said, addressing the Armed Forces officials in Tehran.
Stressing that the power balance had changed in Iran's interest by the important events which had happened in recent years, he said, "Iran's strategies gave us access to the enemy in the region and when the enemy entered our operational zone, its weak points became more obvious."
Salami said that the enemy wanted to cripple the Iranian society through sanctions, decrease the country's regional clout by political isolation and vacate the Iranian society and the Islamic Republic's energy by internal seditions but Tehran made their plots fall flat through understanding their strategies.