In Vienna on Monday, after the deadline for reaching a deal on Iran’s nuclear program expired, and yet another extension was agreed upon, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave a joint press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
”Today we are closer to a deal that will make our partners like Israel and the Gulf states safer,” he said. “We now see a path for solving issues that until now were intractable.”
Responding to this turn of events at a forum in Tehran on the same day, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari expressed satisfaction.
”The Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran’s might,” he said. “[Which] is obvious in their behavior in the region and in the negotiations.”
Indeed.
He then pointed to the fact that Iran is arming Hezbollah and Hamas with heavy weaponry for the purpose of defeating Israel and attaining a “final victory” over the West.
Jafari was referring to hundreds of Fateh missiles — with 160- to 220-mile ranges and the ability to carry 1,100-pound warheads — whose transfer was announced over the weekend by Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force Brig. Gen. Seyed Majid Moussavi.
”Our strategic guiding principle is … to allow the resistance groups to deal with the bloodthirsty Zionist regime,” Moussavi told Iran’s Fars news agency.
This is in keeping with the nine-point plan for Israel’s destruction tweeted earlier this month by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. It also jibes with Khamenei’s anti-Israel and anti-American speeches surrounding the celebration of the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Islamic revolutionaries who had ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ushered in the reign of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
It was spelled out, as well, in a communique issued by the Revolutionary Guard in honor of the 35th anniversary of the taking of dozens of American diplomats hostage for 444 days (and the coinciding Ashura day of mourning for the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein ibn Ali).