Courage and rationality: they represent another duty of the officials. They should be courageous. They should not back off in the face of other’s shouts and cries. They should not miss out on what is correct and necessary in the face of the nonsensical statements by officials of the US, Europe or other such governments. You know how irrelevant they speak. Their words are sometimes really like those of a clown. Some U.S. official wishes to boo us in the world and says that Iran should learn human rights from Saudi Arabia! What can be said to such a person? Can we give them any epithet other than “clowns”? Can we give them any other title? Neither the threats, nor the promises, nor the statements and signatures of this person-- and such individuals-- are credible. We should not take heed of them. We should tread the correct path in a courageous and rational manner. We cannot act on the basis of feelings. The management of a country is not possible with feelings. Feelings are, of course, truly necessary, but only to back up rationality. We should choose the path in a rational way and then, we should move forward with motivation and feelings[...]
As for sanctions, well, sanctions exert certain pressures on nations and countries. U.S. officials themselves say gleefully that the sanctions that they have launched against the Iranian nation are “unprecedented in history.” Well, they are unprecedented in history and by Allah’s favor, the failure of the U.S. on this matter will be unprecedented in history, too. The people, the administration and officials – all of them – can do something to make these sanctions end in our advantage to a hundred percent.
During the war, we were under sanctions as well. They would not even sell us personal weapons. Once I said, that they would not even sell us barbed wire, but the same deprivations caused domestic talents to work, as a result of which we have reached a point today where we are the first in the region and ahead of everyone else, by Allah’s favor. This was achieved thanks to sanctions. Otherwise, if we had bought everything that we needed from the first day, if they had given them to us easily by taking our money, we would not have thought of building them on our own and reaching this point. This is the case on all matters.
Our youth say to me – and they prove it: it is not just a mere claim – that there is no piece and component that the country needs and that we cannot build. We can build everything on our own and they are right. We tried that on certain cases and we witnessed that they are right. We have such human capacity. We should do something to turn sanctions into an instrument for blossoming and for reaching the peaks of innovation and work in the country. We should do something to have no need of others’ products and make others need ours. This is something that can be done.