Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Donald Trump appear to be on course for a bitter clash at the UN General Assembly this week in the wake of the September 22 terror attack on a military parade in Iran that killed at least 29 people, including 12 soldiers and children.

Rouhani said the “bully” US and the Gulf “puppet” states that it backs enabled the attack, in which four gunmen disguised as soldiers opened fire on troops of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. A four-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy were among the victims as were some conscripts and a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war who was killed in his wheelchair.

The IRGC said in a statement on September 23 that “considering [the Guards’] full knowledge about the centers of deployment of the criminal terrorists’ leaders ..., they [the perpetrators] will face a deadly and unforgettable vengeance in the near future”.

Both an anti-government Arab group, the Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahvaz, which seeks a separate state in the oil-rich Khuzestan province, and Islamic State militants claimed to be behind the attack, though neither group presented evidence for their claim. The US denied enabling the terrorism in any way, saying it condemned “any terrorist attack”.

Critical juncture
Rouhani and Iran are under chronic economic pressure caused by the US president’s decision in early May to unilaterally walk out of the nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers and to instead reinstate heavy sanctions against Tehran in a bid to throttle the Iranian economy to force the Islamic Republic into concessions over the role it plays in the Middle East. Iran believes that at this critical juncture its regional foes are looking to stoke the turmoil in Iran in any way they can and that the Trump administration is demonising the country with fake claims and misleading propaganda at every opportunity.

Speaking on September 23 before departing for the UN in New York, Rouhani vowed that Iran would "not let this crime [in Ahvaz] stand".

"It is absolutely clear to us who committed this crime... and whom they are linked to," he said. He went on to claim that a Gulf country had supported the "financial, weaponry and political needs" of the attackers, adding: "The small puppet countries in the region are backed by America, and the US is provoking them and giving them the necessary capabilities."

"The US showed the world their bullying nature and they keep continuing their unilateral policies."

While Rouhani did not specify which "puppet" countries he was referring to, analysts saw his comments as almost certainly directed at Iran's regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia and its allies, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Iran has also alleged that the gunmen had links to its bitter foe Israel and over the weekend summoned diplomats from the UK, the Netherlands, and Denmark, accusing their countries of harbouring Iranian opposition groups.

Iran the focus
Trump has said Iran will be the focus of a UN Security Council meeting on September 26 that he is scheduled to chair. That approach may risk a backlash as all the other major nation signatories of the Iran nuclear deal—the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China—say the Iranians remain in full compliance with the accord—designed to bar Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon in return for the lifting of sanctions—and that the US was wrong to withdraw from it.

Last year’s UN General Assembly saw Trump make a speech accusing Iran of destabilising the Middle East. He called it “a rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos”.

In his speech to the Assembly, Rouhani hit back, saying Trump’s address was “ignorant, absurd” and filled with “hateful rhetoric”. Iran’s leaders often refer to Trump as a “rogue president” who could not be trusted in face to face talks.

Prior to this week’s UN Assembly gathering, more sparks flew on September 23 when US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley responded to Rouhani’s words following the terrorist attack, by saying: “He’s got the Iranian people ... protesting, every ounce of money that goes into Iran goes into his military, he has oppressed his people for a long time and he needs to look at his own base to figure out where that’s coming from.”

"The United States condemns any terrorist attack anywhere," she told CNN, but added: "He can blame us all he wants. The thing he's got to do is look at the mirror."

Rouhani is a centrist and pragmatist who was re-elected by a landslide for a second term in an election in May 2017. The poll saw him roundly defeat the hardliners, but in Iran’s theocratic republic the key elements of the parliamentary democracy and government are vetted and supervised by the unelected supreme leader.

Giuliani backs regime change
Washington has repeatedly insisted that its economic assault on Iran is not aimed at achieving regime change but on September 22 Trump’s attorney Rudolph Giuliani told members of Iran’s self-declared government-in-exile that the US sympathises with their efforts to overthrow the Iranian government.

The former New York mayor spoke to members and supporters of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

“I don’t know when we’re going to overthrow them. It could be in a few days, months or a couple of years, but it’s going to happen,” Giuliani said. “They are going to be overthrown. The people of Iran obviously have had enough.”

Giuliani said the NCRI was the democratic answer to an Iranian regime he referred to as “a group of outlaws and murderers and people who pretend to be religious people and then have so much blood on their hands it’s almost unthinkable”.

He added: “Iran is entitled to freedom and democracy.”

The White House says Giuliani does not speak for the Trump administration, but Giuliani’s alignment with the NCRI has left many Iranians incredulous, given that it is an umbrella coalition largely controlled by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK). The MeK was once listed as a terrorist organisation in the US and Europe and it is still widely viewed as a Marxist-Islamist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi. The MeK has no substantial support in Iran. It failed to establish a significant role in the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, went on to take Iraq’s side in the Iran-Iraq war and fell into obscurity after making its headquarters a compound in Albania.

When Giuliani addressed an NCRI rally in Paris in late June, the Guardian reported that only around half of the attendees were Iranian. The other half reportedly consisted of an assortment of bored-looking Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Germans and Syrians who responded to a Facebook campaign promising travel, food and accommodation to Paris for a mere €25. Hundreds of Syrian refugees settled in Germany also attended. Many snoozed under trees during speeches, the newspaper’s report said.