New Delhi, Aug. 24 -- The op-ed was intended as a statement of American strength. For Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs, it read as something else entirely.

framing it as the prelude to what he called "the final stage" of Washington's campaign. He then announced that the United States would simultaneously launch what he described as "the single greatest financial offensive in history" against Tehran.

Gharibabadi did not need long to identify the contradiction. "Something doesn't add up in your stories," the Iranian diplomat said in a public statement on Sunday. "You say that Iran's military potential has been 'dismantled' 100%, military factories have been 'destroyed,' and the nuclear ...