”Who translated your version of these statements?
Since you haven't showed me where you got them,…”
1) “We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization….”
Taking Iran At Its Word
By Steven Stalinsky
Reprinted from The Jerusalem Post (August 30, 2004)
There are growing indications that Iran may
be planning an attack on American soil.
These indicators are not secret -they
appear in speeches, newspaper articles, T V
programs, and sermons in Iran by figures linked to
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other
government officials. All discuss potential Iranian
attacks on the US, which will subsequently lead to
its destruction.
A report on May 28 in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat
reported that an Iranian intelligence unit has
established a center called “The Brigades of the
Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening.” The
paper claimed it had obtained a tape with a speech
by Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guards
intelligence theoretician who teaches at A l -
Hussein University. In the tape, Abbassi spoke of
Teheran’s secret plans, which include “a strategy
drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon
civilization.”
In order to accomplish this, he explained, “there
are 29 sensitive sites in the US and in the West.
We have already spied on these sites, and we
know how we are going to attack them.”
It was reported that the US had expelled two
Iranian security guards employed by Teheran’s
UN offices on June 29, after the mission was
repeatedly warned against allowing its guards to
videotape bridges, the Statue of Liberty and New
York’s subway.
This was the third time the Iranians had been
caught in activities which could be connected to
plans to attack the US.
Abbassi’s speech further detailed that “[Iran’s]
missiles are now ready to strike at their
civilization, and as soon as the instructions arrive
from Leader [Ali Khamenei], we will launch our
missiles at their cities and installations.”
In fact, over the past few months Khamenei has
been vocal about the impending “destruction of
the US.” In May he was quoted in the Iranian
paper Jomhouri-Ye Eslami as stating that “the
world will witness the annihilation of this arrogant
regime.”
On July 5, in front of a crowd chanting “Woe to
the enemy if Khamenei commands me to wage
Jihad,” Khamenei said: “If someone harms our
people and invades our country, we will endanger
his interests anywhere in the world.”
Other Iranian religious leaders have also called
for the destruction of the US.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, secretary-general of
the Guardian Council, appeared on Iran’s Channel
1 TVon June 4, stating, “Every Muslim and every
honorable man who is not a Muslim must stand
against the Americans, English, and Israelis and
endanger their interests wherever they may be.”
When he added “They must not have security,”
thousands in the audience repeated chants of
“Islam is victorious, America will be annihilated.”
On June 25, Jannati also led prayers and
promised, “Anyone who confronted the
revolution, the Imam [Khomeini], and our
dedicated people eventually collapsed. America is
the last one, and, Allah willing, it will collapse....”
The following week Ayatollah Mohammad
Emami-Kashani delivered the Friday sermon live
on Channel 1 stating that the US would collapse
like Genghis Khan’s empire: “I say to you, the
American people you will collapse, America will
collapse.”
“Time-bombs within America” is how Iranian
MP Hamid-Reza Katoziyan described Muslims
within the US, who could be behind future
terrorist attacks on America.
Speaking on Iranian TV channel Jaam-E-Jam 2
on July 27, Katoziyan warned: “The whole group
of people belonging to the Arab community and
Muslims living in the US are currently, in my
opinion, in a special situation. Perhaps they do not
walk the streets with weapons in their hands or
attach bombs to themselves in order to carry out a
suicide operation, but the thought is there.”
Just as statements from Iranian religious and
political leaders, as well as TV programs, have
focused on attacking the US, so has the print
media. An editorial in the July 6 edition of the
Iranian daily K a y h a n, the conservative paper
affiliated with Khamenei, issued another warning
for the future:
“ The White House’s 80 years of exclusive rule
are likely to become 80 seconds of Hell that will
burn to ashes. That very day, those who resist
[Iran] will be struck from directions they never
expected. The heartbeat of the crisis is
undoubtedly [dictated by] the hand of Iran.”
The report by the 9-11 Commission asks:
“September 11 was a day of unprecedented shock
The nation was unprepared How can we avoid
such tragedy again?”
Taking Iran’s threatening words and actions
seriously is an important step. s
The writer is the executive director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). |
