Responding to U.S. sanctions designations against senior Iranian political and military officials, Iran’s diplomatic spokesperson asserted that “such measures only reveal the [U.S.] regime’s desperation and inability to use diplomatic or logical solutions”. He added that “it is the U.S. administration that must stop [backing] terrorism, especially its support for the state-sponsored terrorism of the Zionist regime [i.e., Israel] which loots other countries' resources, as well as piracy, economic terrorism, and other abnormal and unusual behaviours, and instead choose a civilized, wise and lawful path".