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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) Irans top diplomat acknowledged Wednesday that Iranians were lied to for days after the Islamic Republic accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner. The admission came as new surveillance footage purported to show two surface-to-air missiles 20 seconds apart shred the airplane and kill all 176 people aboard.

The downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight last week came amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. over its unraveling nuclear deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani for the first time Wednesday threatened Europe by warning its soldiers in the Mideast could be in danger over the crisis as Britain, France and Germany launched a measure that could see United Nations sanctions re-imposed on Tehran.

The crash and subsequent days of Iranian denials that a missile had downed the airplane has sparked angry protests in a country already on edge as its economy struggles under crushing American sanctions.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran reached a fever pitch two weeks ago with the American drone strike in Baghdad that killed the powerful Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani. The general had led Iranian proxy forces abroad, including those blame for deadly roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq.

Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile strike targeting Iraqi military bases housing U.S. forces early last Wednesday, just before Irans paramilitary Revolutionary Guard shot down the Ukrainian airliner taking off from Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Iran for days afterward insisted a technical fault downed the 3-year-old Boeing 737-800. It wasnt until Western governments, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, went public with their suspicions the plane had been shot down that Iran admitted it fired on the plane.

Not admitting the plane had been shot down was for the betterment of our countrys security, because if we had said this, our air defense system would have become crippled and our guys would have had doubted everything, said Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards aerospace program, in television footage aired Wednesday.

Hajizadeh only days earlier apologized on state television and said: I wish I were dead.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking at a summit in New Delhi, became the first official to describe Irans earlier claims as a lie.

In the last few nights, weve had people in the streets of Tehran demonstrating against the fact that they were lied to for a couple of days, Zarif said.

Zarif went onto praise Irans military for being brave enough to claim responsibility early on.

However, he said that he and Rouhani only learned that a missile had down the flight on Friday, raising new questions over how much power Irans civilian government has in its Shiite theocracy. The Guard knew immediately afterward its missile downed the airline.

The Guard is answerable only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is expected to preside over Friday prayers in Iran for the first time in years over anger about the crash.

The new surveillance footage obtained by The Associated Press showing the missile fire was filmed off a monitor by a mobile phone. It appears to be taken near the town of Bidkaneh, northwest of Tehrans Imam Khomeini International Airport.

The two minutes of black-and-white footage purportedly shows one missile streaking across the sky and exploding near the plane. Ten seconds later, another missile is fired. Some 20 seconds after the first explosion, another strikes near the plane. A ball of flames then falls from the sky out of frame.

The footage corresponds with AP reporting, appears genuine and matches geographic features of the area. The date in the upper right-hand corner of the video appears to correspond to Irans Persian calendar. It also explains how so many people filmed the shoot down: The first explosion drew their attention and their filming mobile phones to the predawn sky.

Amid all of this, Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday launched the so-called dispute mechanism pertaining to Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran has been breaking limits of the accord for months in response to President Donald Trumps decision to unilaterally withdraw America from the deal in May 2018.

After Soleimanis killing, Iran announced it would no longer abide by any of the nuclear deals limits, which had been designed to keep Tehran from having enough material to be able to build an atomic bomb if it chose. However, Iran has said it will continue to allow the United Nations nuclear watchdog access to its nuclear sites.

Speaking before his Cabinet, Rouhani showed a rarely seen level of anger in wide-ranging remarks Wednesday that included the threat to Europe.

Today, the American soldier is in danger, tomorrow the European soldier could be in danger, Rouhani said. We want you to leave this region but not with war. We want you to go wisely. It is to your own benefit.

Rouhani did not elaborate.

European forces have been deployed alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. France also maintains a naval base in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, while Britain has opened a base in the island nation of Bahrain.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano told reporters that officials were aware of the threats, but the European Union had no plans to leave Iraq. Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini told lawmakers his government has plans to increase Romes troop levels at the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all oil passes.

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, meanwhile, made an unannounced visit Wednesday to the Azraq base in Jordan, where German troops serving in the fight against the Islamic State group are based. Germany wants to resume training Iraqi forces.

Rouhani also reiterated a longtime Iranian pledge that Tehran doesnt seek the bomb. That pledge comes amid Western fears that the time it would need to have enough material for a nuclear weapon is narrowing. Under the deal, experts estimated Iran needed a year.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Iranian state media said the British ambassador to Iran, Robert Macaire, had left the country. Macaire departed after being given what the state-run IRNA news agency described as prior notice, without elaborating. Britains Foreign Office insisted Macaires trip to London was routine, business as usual and was planned before his arrest and brief detention in Tehran on Saturday. He was detained after attending a vigil about the plane shoot down that turned into an anti-government protest. Britain said he planned return to Iran.

___

Schmall reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Nadia Ahmed and Jill Lawless in London, Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Frances DEmilio in Rome contributed to this report.

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Video: 20 seconds of terror between missiles in Iran crash

Cars drive through a busy road in Tehran last July. Manufacturing including automobiles, metals and plastics accounts for about a fifth of overall employment in Iran. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Cars drive through a busy road in Tehran last July. Manufacturing including automobiles, metals and plastics accounts for about a fifth of overall employment in Iran.

Since 2017, the Trump administration has placed layers of tough sanctions on Iran in an effort to deprive the regime of financial resources and to force it to negotiate a new nuclear deal.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a recent speech that the administration's strategy of "maximum pressure" aims to cut off 80% of Iran's oil revenues and that "President Rouhani himself said that we have denied the Iranian regime some $200 billion in lost foreign income and investment as a result of our activities."

Yet Iran's economy has not collapsed.

"I think the predictions of a quick economic collapse were too optimistic," says Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech specializing in the Iranian economy. Despite the Trump administration's crushing sanctions, there is "a misunderstanding of the level of complexity of Iran's economy and how good they are or how experienced they are with resisting sanctions."

To be sure, the increasing sanctions since 2017 have hit Iran's economy hard.

"Unemployment is high; inflation is high. They're running out of foreign exchange," says Salehi-Isfahani. "The economy is not in good shape at all."

Certain goods, such as food products, are not affected by secondary sanctions on Iran. Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Certain goods, such as food products, are not affected by secondary sanctions on Iran.

But over the past four decades, Iran has had a lot of experience with sanctions and has learned to withstand their impact, he says. And it's no different this time.

Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimate Iran's gross domestic product is on track to decline by roughly 9% this year. (Iran's own estimates are lower, Salehi-Isfahani says). Compare that with the 1970s and late 1980s, when the U.S. imposed sanctions after Americans were held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. At that time, Iran's GDP per capita dropped by 50%, according to Salehi-Isfahani.

The World Bank and IMF estimates of economic decline take into account a sharp drop in Iran's oil exports. Before the U.S. pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal in May 2018, Iran was exporting about 2 million barrels of crude oil a day. Now it's estimated that Iran exports between 300,000 and 500,000 barrels daily, most of that to China, says Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of Bourse and Bazaar, an organization that tracks developments in Iran's economy.

But Iran isn't solely reliant on oil, Batmanghelidj notes.

"The Iranian economy is a very diverse economy, and manufacturing is really one of the most important areas," he says. "Currently, manufacturing accounts for about one-fifth of overall employment in the country."

Batmanghelidj says that includes automobiles, metals and plastics. The U.S. sanctions make it difficult for Iranian businesses to access goods needed to make the products, and it's tough to find customers abroad because there's fear the Trump administration will also slap secondary sanctions on any company doing business with Iran.

But some Iranian manufacturers can stay afloat because of informal payment systems that don't rely on banks to get money in and out of the country, Batmanghelidj says. Also, certain goods are not affected by secondary sanctions.

"They're really basic goods, like food products or like consumer products, including things like household products, like detergent or shampoo," he says.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran specialist at the Brookings Institution, says Iran also has "well-integrated" relations with regional partners, through which it can barter, trade or use other types of arrangements to maintain some economic activity.

"The Iranians really do have alternative industries to fall back on and a significant domestic capacity, as well as the ability to leverage their relationships with several of their neighboring states to try to muddle through economic adversity," she says. "Countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, some of the Central Asian republics and, of course, Syria, elsewhere across the region it does have a reach that goes beyond that of the U.S. Treasury Department."

A shortage of imported goods has helped spur domestic production, Salehi-Isfahani says. That, in turn, has helped create more employment for Iranians.

But it's hard to gauge how much patience the Iranian population has. Forty years ago, he says, Iranians were willing to put up with hardships caused by U.S. sanctions. Now they are protesting in the streets.

"As we have noticed in the last few months," he says, "that tolerance isn't there. To what extent the government can maintain public order in the face of this 10 to 20% decline in living standards, I don't know."

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Why Iran's Economy Has Not Collapsed Amid U.S. Sanctions And 'Maximum Pressure' - NPR

BEIJING They accuse each other of inciting violence. They denounce one another as corrupt. They call each other terrorists.

As tensions between the United States and Iran persist after the American killing of a top Iranian general this month, the two countries are waging a heated battle in an unlikely forum: the Chinese internet.

The embassies of the United States and Iran in Beijing have published a series of barbed posts in recent days on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media site, attacking each other in Chinese and in plain view of the countrys hundreds of millions of internet users.

The United States Embassy has accused Iran of leaving bloodstains everywhere. The Iranian Embassy has denounced the Jan. 3 killing of the general, Qassim Suleimani, and vowed to seek the end of Americas evil forces in western Asia.

The battle has captivated people in China, where diplomatic rows rarely break into public view and the government often censors posts about politics.

The trolling comes at a time when the United States is pressuring American technology companies to censor content by groups the government has identified as terrorist organizations. Reports have emerged that Facebook, for example, is censoring some pro-Iran posts, including on Instagram. The company said in a statement that it was obliged to review some posts in order to comply with American sanctions.

Iran, for its part, has for years sought to hinder the flow of information from the West more broadly, blocking Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

Chinese news outlets have covered the skirmish breathlessly, describing Weibo as the new battlefield between the two countries. A hashtag referring to the Weibo fight had been viewed more than 1.5 million times as of Thursday.

The Chinese authorities operate one of the worlds most aggressive censorship systems, routinely scrubbing reports, comments and posts on the internet that are deemed politically sensitive or subversive. Posts by foreign diplomats are known to have been censored, especially on topics such as North Korea or human rights.

But the government has so far allowed the war of words between the United States and Iran to continue, perhaps because it deflects attention away from issues in China, analysts said.

Any topic that provides a distraction from internal problems in China is beneficial to Beijing, said Fergus Ryan, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute who has studied Chinas censorship of posts by foreign embassies. This just happens to be a case where Beijing sees little downside for itself as Iran and the U.S. squabble.

Many Chinese internet users have used the occasion to criticize the United States as an imperialist power, echoing a favorite propaganda theme of Beijing. Others have praised Weibo for allowing the discussion to be published, reacting to the news that Facebook had been censoring some posts.

The American Embassy, which has more than 2.6 million followers on Weibo, said it welcomed the debate.

We expect critical discussion and debate, which might include both support and criticism of U.S. policy, the embassy said in a statement, describing its approach to social media in China.

The Iranian Embassy, with more than 300,000 followers, did not respond to a request for comment.

China and Iran have sought closer relations in recent years, especially as American sanctions have increased economic pressure on Tehran.

Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, visited Beijing in late December, just days before the killing of the general, to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. At the meeting, Mr. Wang criticized overseas bullying practices, a remark that was seen as aimed at the United States.

In its Weibo posts, the Iranian Embassy made a point of appealing to Chinese internet users, thanking them for their support and even suggesting that they visit Iran for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday (safety is not an issue, the embassy wrote).

Iran might be particularly eager to gain attention and validation from the Chinese public, experts said.

China has provided Iran with very important economic and political lifelines in recent years when U.S. sanctions have choked that country, said Hongying Wang, an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Positive responses from Chinese commenters could help boost the legitimacy of the Iranian government in the eyes of its own people, she added.

Albee Zhang contributed research.

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U.S. and Iran Are Trolling Each Other in China - The New York Times

David Wurmser was a longtime advocate of war with Iraq in the Bush administration. Eventually, he got what he wanted, and it was a total disaster. Now, Wurmser again has the ear of a president this time, Donald Trump and his sights are set firmly on Iran.

An influential neoconservative in President George W. Bushs White House who became a significant force behind the push for war with Iraq in 2003, Wurmser has recently been serving as an informal adviser to the Trump administration, according to new reporting from Bloomberg News. In that capacity, Wurmser helped make the case for the recent drone strike that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

David Wurmser again has the ear of a president this time, Donald Trump and his sights are set firmly on Iran.

Wurmser wrote several memos to then-national security adviser John Bolton in May and June of 2019. In the documents, according to Bloomberg, Wurmser argued that aggressive action by the U.S. such as the killing of Suleimani would, in Wurmsers words, rattle the delicate internal balance offorces and the control over them upon which the [Iranian] regime depends for stability and survival.

The significance of this is two-fold. First, while it was already clear that the neoconservative movement has powerfully influenced the Trump administration, Wurmsers role on Iran is further evidence of the sway that neoconservatism still holds on the U.S. right despite the catastrophic invasion of Iraq and Trumps disavowal of the war. Second, it demonstrates that neoconservatives such as Wurmser still cherish a peculiar theory about Iranian society.

After Bushs reelection in 2005, the hard-right faction of his administration turned its attention to Iran. These officials had always wanted regime change in the Islamic Republic, but now some of them believed that a full-scale invasion would not be necessary to bring this about. A 2005 article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh quoted a government consultant who described the perspective of these officials as being that a bombing campaign against Irans nuclear facilities would spur a revolution led by secular nationalists and reformers. The consultant summarized their view: The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse.

Wurmsers outlook seems not to have changed one bit. In his memos to Bolton, he wrote that the U.S. will not need boots on the ground because Iranians would both beimpressed andpotentially encouraged by a targeted attack on symbols of repression.

This theory, so popular among neoconservatives, has always been bizarre: Nations generally become more right-wing when under attack. For instance, after the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, Americans did not demand that Bush be impeached and Dennis Kucinich move into the Oval Office.

We should definitely consider the possibility that the neocons dont know what theyre talking about. And yet, here we are, with those self-same neocons again helping shape our foreign policy in delusional and dangerous ways.

The continued self-confidence of neoconservatives like Wurmser is particularly odd given how all their beliefs were proven disastrously wrong in Iraq.

Wurmser holds a Ph.D. in international affairs and worked for the AIPAC-spinoff Washington Institute for Near East Policy in the mid-1990s. In 1996, he was one of the main thinkers behind a policy document titled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm that was prepared by an Israeli think tank for then-incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government in 1996. The paper called for Israel to engage in preemptive attacks on its perceived foes and a focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

In 1999, Wurmser wrote a book titled Tyrannys Ally: Americas Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, which was pretty much what it sounds like. Chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons are the pillars of Saddams regime, Wurmser said, adding that the menace from Saddams Iraq will continue to grow if the U.S. did not remove him from power.

After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the purported wishes of the neoconservatives collided with reality, and reality won.

After the September 11 attacks, Wurmser was appointed to a two-man intelligence unit by then-Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith. (Feith is perhaps best known for being referred to as the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth by Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasion of Iraq.) Among Wurmsers ideas was for the U.S. to respond to Al Qaeda by, as the 9/11 Commission later put it, hitting a non-Al Qaeda target like Iraq.

Wurmser then became a senior adviser to Bolton, who at that point was an undersecretary at the State Department and one of the most vociferous champions of a regime change war with Iraq.

Eventually, Wurmser and company got what they wanted, and the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq in March 2003. At that point, the purported wishes of the neoconservatives collided with reality, and reality won. Hundreds of thousands of people died, the lives of millions have been blighted, and the entire region will be in flames for the indefinite future.

In a 2007 interview, however, Wurmser continued to defend the decision to go to war, though he did question the Bush administrations rhetorical emphasis on democracy in Iraq. Im not a big fan of democracy per se, he said, Im a fan of freedom and one has to remember the difference. Freedom must precede democracy by a long, long time. In the same interview, he stated that if the U.S. failed to trigger a fundamental change in behavior by Irans leaders that America might have to think seriously about going directly into Iran.

In any case, nothing in the past 17 years seems to have made much of an impression on Wurmser; he still maintains a belief in his own skill at precisely calibrated global strategy. Nor has this past calamitous decade and a half prevented him from having the ear of the people who operate Americas killer drones. Notably, the article about Wurmsers current accomplishments, by neoconservative Bloomberg journalist Eli Lake, does not mention any of Wurmsers unfortunate history.

Wurmser did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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David Wurmser, Key Iraq War Architect, Advising Trump on Iran - The Intercept

Just after the United States killed Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified the attack by claiming: The entire strategy has been one of deterrence. Indeed, history may judge the killing based on whether it provokes a spiral that leads to more Iranian and U.S. attacks or helps convince Iran to become less aggressive. The United States seeks to deter Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon and from regional aggression, like its September 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities and support for anti-Israel militant and terrorist groups.

Judging the success of deterrence is always easier in hindsight. The Cold War is correctly judged a deterrence success, but nuclear war always seemed around the corner while it raged. In 2006, Israel fought a 34-day war with the Lebanese Hezbollah. In its aftermath, analysts warned of another round, but deterrence seems to have prevented a full-blown conflict in the years since.

On the positive side, both sides in public are moving away from the abyss. President Trump put aside his usual bellicose rhetoric and sounded conciliatory in a speech after the attack. While warning Iran of American strength, he also stressed: We do not want to use it. Irans supreme leader proclaimed its rocket attacks on the United States a slap in the face but focused on the need for the United States to leave the region, not further strikes. Actions seem to be following words. The United States has not carried out additional attacks on Iran, while according to a Pentagon official, Tehran deliberately chose targets that would not result in loss of life though luck and advanced warning from intelligence also played a critical role. On the positive side for Iran, the U.S. killing of Soleimani has angered many Iraqi leaders, and the possibility that U.S. forces will leave Iraq as a result of their wrath is a potential win.

What are the prospects for deterrence with Iran going forward? The good news is that the Soleimani strike seems to have sent a tough message to Iran. The bad news is that many other factors that favor deterrence are lacking. Confused policymaking and rhetoric on both sides diminish the prospects for success.

The deterrence literature is vast (and the particulars are contested), and it has preoccupied some of the greatest names in the study of international relations. Factors identified with success include the credibility of the threats of force, target state vulnerabilities, the role of domestic elites, escalation dominance, the balance of resolve, the role of positive as well as negative inducements, and clarity and cost of signaling.

Some of these factors clearly bolster deterrence of Iran. The United States enjoys vast military superiority over Iran, which has a weak military, and thus can escalate if necessary. Tehran has long had a front-row seat for the display of U.S. military might and has no illusions about the result of a direct military confrontation. Indeed, the killing of Soleimani further showed the prowess of both the U.S. military and intelligence. In addition, a case can be made that it bolstered U.S. credibility, serving as a short, sharp shock. In the past, even horrific accidents like in 1988 when a U.S. warship downed an Iran Air flight, killing almost 300 innocent Iranians highlighted to Iranian leaders the (mistaken) belief that the world would stand by passively while the United States would attack any target. The perception was no doubt reinforced by the U.S. decision to award medals to the Navy officers commanding the ship.

Yet there are many factors that may undermine deterrence. Iran has played up the death of Soleimani and huge crowds turned out for his funeral. This in turn raises the domestic political costs of inaction for Irans leaders. Iran, in addition, is hemorrhaging economically, and the huge protests against the regime before the Soleimani killing demonstrate its legitimacy problems, creating an incentive for Iran to push back abroad to shore up its popularity at home. Nor can too much be read into Irans relatively cautious approach so far. Tehran has a history of biding its time for revenge and has in the past waited months or even years to retaliate. Trump too has domestic political concerns, and some reports indicate both that he did the strike to distract from impeachment (wag the dog) and because he wanted to shore up Republican support as it moves to the Senate.

Resolve may also favor the Iranians. Even ignoring President Trumps vacillations on the use of force in the Middle East and on whether or not to negotiate with Iran, Americans are increasingly weary of deploying troops in the Middle East and skeptical of war with Iran. Iran, for its part, sees a friendly regime in Iraq as a vital interest and otherwise is playing a long game in the Middle East. Even more important, the United States has threatened the Iranian regimes survival, its ultimate vital interest.

The role of Irans many proxies also creates complexities. The United States has targeted proxy leaders in Iraq, and they too have vowed revenge. They may target U.S. forces for their own reasons, creating a situation where the United States reacts harshly and either blames Iran for the proxys action or Iran sees the U.S. response as an escalation. Iran, for its part, may fear that Israeli actions or saber-rattling are part and parcel of a broader U.S. campaign, with Israel serving as a cutout a misguided view, but one consistent with Iranian beliefs of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Nor is the United States offering reassurance, creating off-ramps, or otherwise offering inducements for Iran to be less confrontational. After the latest round of conflict, the United States announced new sanctions on Iran (a largely symbolic gesture given the pre-existing extensive economic pressure on Iran), suggesting pressure will continue if not grow. This hard line fits the Trump administrations policies. In May 2018, in his first major foreign policy speech, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo demanded not only an end to Irans nuclear activities, but also questioned the regimes legitimacy and said that Iran must end its interference in Yemen and Syria and longstanding support for groups like the Lebanese Hezbollah a long and unrealistic list of demands. Nor do Iranian leaders trust U.S. promises. In particular, the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal without a clear Iranian violation undercuts Iranian confidence in U.S. guarantees.

Both Iran and the United States are sending mixed signals, which can be disastrous for deterrence. The Trump administration has increased the U.S. troops presence in the Middle East even while calling for more troop withdrawals. The president threatened to strike Iranian cultural sites, while the secretary of defense quickly disavowed this. Nor has the United States clearly conveyed to U.S. allies what American goals are and where and when the United States will respond in the future. Some Iranian leaders are declaring that their revenge for Soleimani has just begun even as other leaders claim their missile attacks were not meant to kill Americans. Such mixed messages allow the other side to read into them what they want, confirming pre-existing narratives.

The deterrence picture, in the end, is cloudy. Although the last few days have been promising, the contentious politics on both sides and the confused signaling suggests that any peace may be short-lived.

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Is deterrence restored with Iran? - Brookings Institution