The United States first imposed monetary sanctions on Iran in 1979, the hostage crisis. For nearly four decades, the U. S. State Department has designated Iran as one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism.
But the Obama administration, along with five countries, agreed to billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for Iran’s deal to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its services to extensive foreign inspection.
Tehran’s Trump administration pulled out of the deal and increased crushing economic pressure.
This is where Ebrahim Raisi discovered himself when he elected president a year ago. Last month, Iran and the 61-year-old extremist were close to reaching a new deal, but Iran filed lawsuits that plunged nuclear talks into a stalemate.
We met with President Raisi on Tuesday at the presidential compound in Tehran for his first interview with a Western journalist. I told him to get dressed, not to sit in front of him and not to interrupt him. We were given an hour for the interview.
Lesley Stahl: Can we start negotiations on the nuclear deal?Do you need this agreement to be renewed? Because you know, there are U. S. officials who are starting to think not.
President Ebrahim Raisi (translation): If it is a smart agreement and a fair agreement, we would be serious about reaching an agreement. It will have to be sustainable. Guarantees are needed. If there was a guarantee, the Americans would not be able to withdraw from the agreement.
Lesley Stahl: But you can withdraw from the deal, I mean, as well as we can withdraw from the deal.
President Ebrahim Raisi: You see, the Americans have damaged your womb. They did so unilaterally. They said, “I’m out of the picture. ” From now on, doing no longer makes sense.
Lesley Stahl: Are you saying you can’t accept it as true with Americans?
President Ebrahim Raissi: We cannot accept it as truth with the Americans because of the habit we have already noticed from them. Therefore, if there is no guarantee, there is no acceptance as truth with.
The U. S. says the West cannot accept Iran as true. For example, when it claims that its nuclear program is purely for nonviolent purposes.
Lesley Stahl: As far as we know, don’t use it for things that might affect your citizens, like electricity. He says he needs it for non-violent reasons.
President Ebrahim Raisi (translation): As in medicine, agriculture, oil, gas.
In terms of “peaceful purposes”, one figure we have – from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA – is that only 1. 8% of the country’s electricity is generated through nuclear energy.
Lesley Stahl: There turned out to be evidence that you had been working, at least before, to get a bomb, a bomb, a gun, and you might do it again.
President Ebrahim Raissi: We have responded to these demands on several occasions. They are unfounded. The Islamic Republic of Iran has declared that the ownership of nuclear weapons has no place in our doctrine.
However, the US intelligence network has assessed “with confidence” that Iran has tried to expand a nuclear bomb in the past.
And then there are the Americans detained in Tehran, 3 of whom were born in Iran.
Lesley Stahl: If there is an agreement, would you agree with the 4 Americans who are being held here? Could it be part of it?
President Ebrahim Raissi: There are also Iranian citizens imprisoned in the United States. These other people are only there because they simply tried to circumvent sanctions. And to the Americans, we told them we could communicate about it. nuclear communications. This can be done between the two countries. It is a humanitarian issue. This can be negotiated.
Lesley Stahl: You’re going to New York. You know, President Biden will be there. Are you open to a tête-à-tête with President Biden?
President Ebrahim Raissi: Non. Je I don’t think there will be such an assembly. I don’t think it’s beneficial to have an assembly or a verbal exchange with him.
Lesley Stahl: What do you think is the difference between Trump’s administration and Biden’s management?
President Ebrahim Raissi: The new management in the United States, they say they are others from Trump’s management. That’s what they told us in their messages. But we’ve noticed some actually.
His biggest opposition to President Biden is that he has tightened sanctions imposed on Iran by President Trump.
President Ebrahim Raisi: The sanctions are very tyrannical. It is a tyranny opposed to the Iranian people. We have the sanctions lifted.
The sanctions plunged Iran into a two-year recession, essentially because oil exports from refineries like this fell overnight from 2. 8 million barrels a day to about 200,000. %, practically everything is more expensive.
And yet, we find here as crowded as in New York. And as we have seen, Tehran’s bazaars are full of customers. Those we met were kind to us.
Boy: How are you?
Lesley Stahl: Oh, I’m fine. How are you?
Guy: Fantastic. And you?
Lesley Stahl: Okay. Do you do English at school?
Boy: No!
One explanation for why industry enthusiasm is something the president calls the “resistance economy” in which corporations are encouraged to do more of the things that used to matter: for example, homemade jeans.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know they’re made?
Trader: In Iran.
Lesley Stahl: In Iran?
Merchant: In our country.
Also made in Iran: washing machines, refrigerators, televisions. They also have their own edition of Uber Eats Snapp! Food.
Iran is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world, dating back to 4000 BC. This is where the basics of algebra and chemistry were developed.
Today, there is attention to the devout culture in the Islamic Republic, it is one of the most westernized countries in the Middle East, with a well-educated population.
This mall can be anywhere in America, with an ice skating rink, a food court with hot dogs and burgers, and the least expected: sexy storefronts. And yet, President Raisi has just signed a decree making women who dress modestly arrestable.
A young woman died Friday after morality police arrested her for violating rules on wearing helmets. Eyewitnesses say they saw her being beaten while in a police van.
Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi descends from the Prophet Muhammad, as his black turban means, to the Shiite Muslim tradition. He is a hardline conservative cleric like his mentor, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Lesley Stahl: I need to ask you about your own case. There is a non-public sanction that opposes him. You participated in a commission to execute up to 5,000 political dissidents. They were hanged or shot. I need to ask you if this action.
President Ebrahim Raissi: What kind of evidence can you offer for this?These are just accusations and claims made through members of a terrorist group.
Lesley Stahl: Are you saying it wasn’t true? And that the. . .
President Ebrahim Raissi: Anyone who commits a crime in Iran is tried in official courts and punished for what he has done. They were murdering people. And what happened to them was precisely proportional to what they did.
But the US Treasury Department sanctioned Raisi for human rights violations in that regard, and Amnesty International called it a crime against humanity.
The president fiercely with us, peppering his responses with predictable antipathy toward Israel and the Jewish people.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei was scathing when he tweeted on the same subject in English in 2018:
“Israel is a malignant and cancerous tumor. . . which will have to be disposed of and eradicated.
Lesley Stahl: Did the Holocaust happen?
President Ebrahim Raissi: Look. . . Historical occasions should be studied through researchers and historians. There are symptoms that this has happened. If so, they allow it to be studied and investigated.
Lesley Stahl: So I’m not sure, I sense I’m not sure. What about Israel’s right to exist?
President Ebrahim Raisi: You see, the other people of Palestine are the reality. It is the right of the other peoples of Palestine who have been forced to leave their homes and their homeland. The Americans are supporting this fake regime there to gain a foothold and a foothold there.
Lesley Stahl: You know that Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates have identified Israel and have relations with Israel. And it is said that Saudi Arabia also talks to Israel. And I wonder if it is necessary to comment on that.
President Ebrahim Raisi: If a state shakes hands with the Zionist regime, then it is complicit in its crimes. And they stab the very concept of Palestine in the back.
Lesley Stahl: She vowed revenge on the U. S. The U. S. government is responsible for the killing of its General Soleimani.
More than two years ago, the U. S. The U. S. killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike. A respected army hero in Iran, he has carried out fatal attacks on U. S. forces in the region for years. The ideal leader called for retaliation.
Lesley Stahl: Do you intend to retaliate by murdering Trump management officials?
President Ebrahim Raissi: What the U. S. government didThe U. S. government at the time, on Trump’s direct orders, to assassinate Mr. Qassem Soleimani was a heinous crime. We need justice. We won’t.
Lesley Stahl: I wonder what you mean by “justice. “There this murder, now we’re going to have, you know, a reaction killing?
President Ebrahim Raisi: These are the kind of moves that the American and Zionist regimes are making in the world, we are going to bring out the same movements.
And yet, the U. S. Department of Justiceaccused a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of plotting to assassinate John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser.
As he prepares for his vacation at the UN, President Raisi is provocative. His message: There are no concessions in the nuclear deal, Iran will not back down and it can impose sanctions, which he says would possibly backfire on the United States.
President Ebrahim Raisi (translation): Yes, they can create restrictions and difficulties for us. But there are a number of countries that are sanctioned. In doing so, they bring them closer, make them more united. And that will render U. S. sanctions ineffective.
Lesley Stahl: That’s right, the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians are getting closer.
President Ebrahim Raissi: This technique will work.
As we were completing what appeared to be a cordial conversation, we were surprised when a member of Raisi approached and prevented one of our cameramen from filming our farewell.
Another phone of our cameramen confiscated and held through President Raissi’s security team for two and a half hours.
Produced by Richard Bonin. Associate producer, Mirella Brussani and Collette Richards. Field producer, Seyed Rahim Bathaei. Broadcast Associates, Eliza Costas and Wren Woodson. Edited by Peter M. Berman.