Iran's foreign minister has criticized President Donald Trump for his overnight tweet threatening to the Islamic Republic with its "official end."
Mohammad Javad Zarif posted his own message Monday on Twitter, saying Trump had been "goaded" into "genocidal taunts."
Zarif wrote that Trump "hopes to achieve what Alexander (the Great), Genghis (Khan) & other aggressors failed to do."
He added: "Iranians have stood tall for a millennia while aggressors all gone."
He ended his tweet with #neverthreatenaniranian and: "Try respect - it works!"
If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 19, 2019
Meanwhile, two influential Shiite figures in Iraq are warning from pulling their country into a war between the United States and Iran, saying it would turn Iraq into a battlefield and inflict much harm.
Their comments came few hours after a rocket was fired into the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone, landing less than a mile from the sprawling U.S. Embassy. No injuries were reported.
Iraq's populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said in a statement on Monday that any political party that would involve Iraq in a U.S.-Iran war "would be the enemy of the Iraqi people."
Qais al-Khazali, the leader of an Iranian-backed group, said he is opposed to operations that "give pretexts for war."
As U.S.-Iran tensions escalate, there've been concerns that Baghdad could once again get caught in the middle.
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