The United States is conducting “psychological war” aimed at Iran and the surrounding region, the commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards has said. His comments come amid growing tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Major General Hossein Salami noted on Sunday that “the Americans have started a psychological war because the comings and goings of their military is a normal matter.” The comment was relayed by a parliamentary spokesman and cited by state media.

Last week the US deployed the USS ‘Abraham Lincoln’ Carrier Strike Group as well as a bomber task force to “send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime,” as US National Security Advisor John Bolton put it.

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However, the move apparently failed to impress Tehran, with Iranian officials noting that they’ve become accustomed to an American naval presence in their backyard and are more than capable of defending their country from any provocations.

A senior Iranian cleric said on Friday that the Pentagon’s “billion-dollar fleet can be destroyed with one missile.” In an earlier statement, Keyvan Khosravi, the spokesman for Iran’s National Security Council, dismissed the “message” from Bolton as “an unskillful use of a worn-out event to wage psychological war against Iran.”

Washington has been criticized for using “gunboat diplomacy” to exert pressure on Tehran, which recently announced that it would bypass US sanctions by selling oil on the “grey market.”

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