Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has said the United States must be punished for its atrocities targeting the Islamic Republic, stressing Tehran’s pursuit of “lasting deterrence.”

“The United States must be punished, change its behavior, and be made to understand unequivocally that it must accept the legitimate demands of the Iranian nation,” he said on Wednesday.

The top legislator said Iran’s strategy entailed neither endless war nor perpetual negotiations, but rather using military strength and diplomacy to compel its adversary to accept its demands.

Qalibaf said Iran had to fight with all its strength when necessary, strengthen its preparedness, and translate military victories into political gains.

“To achieve this, we will both fight and negotiate. This means that, when necessary, we must fight with all our might, seize every opportunity to increase our preparedness, and, whenever we achieve a military victory on the battlefield, turn it into a political victory as well, consolidate it, and turn it into a testament to the enemy’s defeat,” he said. “On the battlefield, before God, we must believe that we should fight courageously against our coercive enemy, while also engaging in negotiations to establish lasting deterrence.”

‘New equation’

The official stated that Iran sought to replace the traditional cycle of war, negotiations, and peace with a new equation featuring war, negotiations, and deterrence.

The official questioned whether a signed agreement containing American commitments could prevent the United States from attacking Iran again. “Undoubtedly no,” he said.

He described US hostility towards Iran as deeply rooted, arguing that Washington’s hegemonic and coercive nature fueled its ambitions. “Undoubtedly, as the martyred Leader [of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei] said, ‘they have come to devour Iran,’” he said.

Qalibaf recalled how Iran structured the memorandum of understanding it signed with the US in June in two stages because it did not trust Washington to honor its commitments, while reminding that it was the Islamic Republic’s achieving strategic superiority on the battlefield that compelled Washington to accept the understanding.

Conclusion of the understanding, he added, also provided opportunities and resources to strengthen Iran’s Armed Forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

The official, meanwhile, hailed Iran’s improving its firepower, offensive capabilities, and air defenses during the space between the United States’ and the Israeli regime’s latest rounds of unprovoked aggression targeting the Islamic Republic.

“From [the damage afflicted to the American] drones to the [material losses imposed on the US’s] F-35s, you saw what effects this had,” he said, citing a few instances of the losses suffered by the United States throughout the second round of the aggression that took place between February 28 and April 7.

He identified some other components of deterrence against the adversaries as Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, national unity, economic and social resilience, the country’s clear vision for the future, and the capabilities of the regional Axis of Resistance.

Qalibaf credited Iran’s steadfast resistance in the face of the eight-year-long war imposed on the country by Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein as a clear case proving the importance of deterrence.

“That is what deterrence means: No one should dare attack us. Anyone who entertains this foolish idea should look at the historical experience and understand that they cannot take on Iran,” he said.