Iran rejected offers from the United States to help the country deal with the coronavirus, with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei giving rise to claims the COVID-19 virus is a U.S. bioweapon designed to attack geopolitical foes.
Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader since 1989, acknowledged during a televised address marking the Persian New Year that “U.S. leaders have on several occasions declared that they are ready to help us with medical aid and medicines.” But he called the offer “strange” and accused the U.S. of having nefarious motives while amplifying accusations similar to those pushed by the Chinese Communist Party, according to translations from multiple outlets.
“You Americans are accused of having created the coronavirus. I don’t know how true it is, but when there’s such an allegation, what wise person would trust you to give them medicine?” Khamenei said on Sunday. “You could be giving medicines that spread the virus. You have no credibility, and there’s no way to trust you. You could be sending a medicine that causes the virus to remain permanently, so that it won’t go away.”
Khamenei said, “If you send us doctors or physicians, they might come to see firsthand the effect of the poison that they created” and suggested that “part of the virus has been has been created specifically to target Iran.” The Twelver Shia leader claimed without presenting evidence that U.S. medical experts are “using their knowledge of Iranian genes” and “they may want to come and inspect the results and complete their information and carry out further animosity.”
“The Iranian nation cannot, will not accept this,” Khamenei said.
There were 311,988 confirmed coronavirus cases around the world as of Sunday morning and at least 13,407 deaths tied to the infection, according to Johns Hopkins University. There have been 20,610 confirmed cases in Iran and 1,556 confirmed deaths, although experts believe those numbers are likely much higher. In the U.S., there were 26,747 cases, which have resulted in 340 deaths.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in February that “we have made offers to the Islamic Republic of Iran to help and we’ve made clear to others around the world and in the region that humanitarian assistance to push back against the coronavirus in Iran is something that the United States of America fully supports.”
He repeated the U.S. offer of help during a State Department briefing announcing new sanctions against Iranian nuclear scientists last week while emphasizing that “the Iranian leadership is trying to avoid responsibility for their grossly incompetent and deadly governments — the Wuhan virus is a killer, and the Iranian regime is an accomplice.”
Former Obama adviser, Ben Rhodes, who created a self-described media “echo chamber” to help pass the Iran nuclear deal, tweeted last week that “it is a moral abomination that the United States is continuing to enforce sanctions on Iran while its people die because of a virus that threatens all humanity.”
The World Health Organization concluded the COVID-19 virus outbreak’s initial “epicenter” was in Wuhan, China, and its investigative report in February concluded that “early cases identified in Wuhan are believed to have acquired infection from a zoonotic source as many reported visiting or working in the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market.”
But earlier this month, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, said the coronavirus “may be the product of America’s biological invasion,” according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency and Iranian International. Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed the coronavirus was “produced in lab” and “manufactured by the warfare stock houses of biological war belonging to world powers.”
The Chinese government and its state-run media outlets also deny the coronavirus originated in China, and members of China’s Foreign Ministry and Chinese ambassadors have engaged in a social media campaign to blame the COVID-19 virus outbreak on the U.S., including promoting claims that it originated in a U.S. military biological laboratory.
There is well-documented evidence that China tried to cover up the existence and spread of the coronavirus, silenced doctors and whistleblowers, misled the WHO, and attempted to keep independent health experts from investigating in Wuhan. As the European Union and the State Department have both concluded that Russia is spreading coronavirus disinformation, Russian leader Vladimir Putin backed China’s Xi Jinping in the Chinese Communist Party’s war of words over the coronavirus with the U.S.
In January, the Trump administration announced travel restrictions from China, and Trump implemented restrictions on Iran in late February. Trump announced a European travel ban in March and followed up by declaring a national emergency.
This all comes amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
Iran increased its influence in Iraq following the Obama administration’s military withdrawal from the country and the subsequent invasion by the Islamic State, and Iran received an influx of cash as a result of the Iran nuclear deal, which the U.S. left in 2018. The U.S. has since ratcheted up sanctions in a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Iranian regime.
The U.S. killed Iranian spy chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani earlier this year following Iranian-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq in December, including one which killed U.S. contractor linguist Nawres Hamid, as well as the violent storming of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in January by Iranian-backed groups.
Kata’ib Hezbollah launched rocket attacks against a base in Iraq in March which killed Army Spc. Juan Miguel Mendez Covarrubias and Staff Sgt. Marshal Roberts. The Pentagon responded with airstrikes against Kata’ib Hezbollah weapons facilities.
Last year, the State Department said Iran was responsible for the deaths of “at least” 603 U.S. service members during the Iraq War.
