In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, and peace and greetings be upon our Master and Prophet, Ab-al-Qassem Al-Mustafa Muhammad, and upon his pure, immaculate and chosen household, especially the one remaining with Allah on earth
First of all, I would like to congratulate all you dear youth and dear children, whether the youth who received their ranks today, finished their studies and joined the young officers of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army and the youth who received their epaulets today and who began their path towards their career in the Army. I hope that all of you will be successful, God willing.
You who received your ranks today – while you had epaulets yesterday - have become the young officers of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. In the future too, you will turn into the commanders, officials and powerful managers of the Armed Forces in your country by Allah’s favor and grace. The arena was well-organized today. A beautiful performance was delivered in the arena. I thank the organizers of this performance and those who presented it.
First, I will raise a main point and after that, I will discuss other points for you dear youth of mine. The main point is that presence in the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is not merely a job like other jobs that one pursues, rather it signifies undertaking a holy responsibility. What is that holy responsibility? Ensuring security. Security is one of the most important and influential elements that a society needs. If security does not exist in a society, no task will be carried out in that society in a correct and positive way. If security does not exist in a society and if a country is threatened by its enemies, then people cannot engage in scientific and research work, nor in economic, intellectual and cultural work.
In an unsafe environment, everyone is preoccupied with saving their own lives. You Armed Forces and the Islamic Republic of Iran Army are the preservers of security in this country. This is an extraordinarily important, sensitive, holy and valuable responsibility. You should appreciate the value of this. Therefore, if you youth, who have pure and radiant hearts, try to get close to God with this course of action, you are actually doing an act of worship. In other words, your exercises, your participation in the classroom, the missions that you carry out and the great tasks that you accomplish are all considered acts of worship. When one’s work is holy and when one decides to get close to God, this is an act of worship. So, this is a fundamental difference with other occupations.
The issue of security, as I mentioned, is very important. The gravest harm that the enemies can inflict upon a country is to take its security away. You can see what the enemies are doing in some of the countries in our region. They are taking away security in those countries. And the agents behind these moves have been identified. Today’s arrogant powers – above all, the US – and western intelligence services are creating chaos in some of our neighboring regional countries with money from some reactionary countries in the region. This is the worst kind of enmity and the most dangerous form of showing a grudge against a nation.
I wish to use this opportunity to say to the sympathizers of those countries – such as Iraq and Lebanon which face certain problems – that their priority is to cure insecurity. Their people too should know that although they have legitimate demands, those demands can only be met within the law. The enemy wants to upset legal structures. When there is no legal structure in a country and when there is a void in this regard, nothing can be done. No positive course of action can be adopted. They have devised such plans for our dear country as well. Fortunately, the nation entered the arena on time. It was vigilant and the Armed Forces were present as well and they helped to foil the plot. This cure exists for all the countries who face this problem. This is the first point. You should know that you are the preservers of security – in other words, the preservers of the most important asset that a nation has. Security is a key to other assets.
The next point is a comparison between the Islamic Republic of Iran Army and the armies of arrogant powers. I do not want to discuss all armies in the world. I neither know them nor wish to speak about them. My discussion is about arrogant armies. I want to compare our Army – which benefits from you youth and you newly grown seedlings and flowers – with the armies of arrogant powers. There is a deep difference in terms of identity and nature. As I defined it, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army considers itself to be the preserver of security in its country. This is its main function. However, the primary mission of the armies belonging to arrogant powers is to invade, to occupy and to deliver blows to the countries which can be harmed for certain reasons and certain interests. This is the difference!
We have never begun a war in the Islamic Republic era. When needed, we have defended in a powerful and solid manner, but we have never attacked and shown transgression. Never! In the philosophy and logic of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army and the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is no transgression. However, if you look at the armies of arrogant countries in the past 100 years – when I say “the past 100 years”, this is because this humble person himself is aware of the developments in the past century as I saw up close what happened in our own time – the traces of the crimes committed by the armies of arrogant powers can be witnessed almost everywhere in the world.
In the Indian subcontinent – in Pakistan, India, present-day Bangladesh, Burma and small countries in the Indian Ocean – the English army committed such crimes in the twentieth century that one really feels disgusted at remembering them and at the manner in which they invaded a nation. There are shocking writings about massacring the people in that area. That was only part of what they did. The English army did this in the east.
In the past century, they did the same things in West Asia as well. They did the same things in parts of North Africa. They have committed such crimes that nations will never forget. Of course, politicians – whether the politicians in those weak countries or the politicians in England itself – wanted to cover it up. They wish to consign it to oblivion somehow, but it cannot be consigned to oblivion. It has been recorded in all histories and it will remain there forever.
The same things have been committed by the French Army. The French – who have deafened the world with the cry of human rights and democracy – have committed so many crimes in North Africa, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. In East Asia – in Vietnam – before the Americans entered Vietnam, the French committed crimes there. They committed many crimes. They committed crimes in East Asia. The French Army committed shocking crimes in present-day Syria and Lebanon. They exerted many pressures on the people. These incidents occurred in the past 100 years. Arrogant armies are like this by nature.
And when it was the Americans’ turn, it is clear what happened. In August of 1945, the Americans killed in one moment, hundreds of thousand people with one bomb in Hiroshima. When the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima, a hundred thousand people were killed in the first hour. Of course, later on, other people – tens of thousands – gradually died or were handicapped as a result of poisoning caused by nuclear radiation. Three days after that, they dropped another bomb on Nagasaki . Fifty thousand people were killed there as well.
They were asked if you wanted to finish the war – they would say that they wanted to finish the world war by doing that – the first bomb was enough, why did you drop the second bomb on Nagasaki? The answer was that the first bomb was made with uranium, but the second one was made with plutonium and we wanted to test it! Notice that in order to test a bomb, the lives of 150,000 people were lost at once. This is the nature of arrogant, impious, Godless and immoral armies. This is how armies are different from one another. Of course, these are a few examples that I am citing. If someone decides to speak about the crimes of armies belonging to arrogant powers and if they wish to go beyond the past century and to reflect the past two, three hundred years, they could and should write several books.
Well, what do such armies rely on? How do they get their resources? They rely on arrogant governments. In other words, the problem is not with the armies themselves, rather their source of reliance – arrogant systems – is the problem. Notice that the secret behind our insistence on and persistence in the Holy Quran and our desire to establish an Islamic government is this. When humanity falls into the hands of immoral and impious systems which do not have a correct orientation, this is the outcome and this is what their armies look like.
The armies which committed so many crimes relied on the political powers which had dominated those countries. It was they who supported those armies. And the armies preserved those systems in their own right. This is nature of their work. Of course, on this side too – the side of the Islamic government – the Islamic government respects and attaches value to its Army, its Armed Forces, its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, its Basij and its Police Force. It attaches significance to them. The Armed Forces are one of the most important and efficient elements in the amazing and beautiful system of the Islamic Republic which has been formed by various elements from top to bottom and from its length to its width.
The third point is about the characteristics of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. During the past 40 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran Army has been at the service of the Islamic Revolution with its heart and soul. It brought all its power to the arena. All forces inside the country faced a historic test. Each one of them emerged out of it in a particular way. The Islamic Republic of Iran Army emerged honorable out of it. This is my judgment about the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. Since the first hour of the victory of the Revolution – and even a little before it when revolutionary forces of the army showed their presence – until today, this has lasted 41 years, I have been aware of Army affairs. The Army has shown its presence very well in this arena.
First of all, many elements in the army of the taghuti system, who had preserved their religion and their faith, managed to enter the arena and to actually form the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. Shahid Sayyad, Shahid Sattari, Shahid Babai and looking further back, Shahid Fallahi, Shahid Fakuri, the late Zahirnejad and the late Salimi were active in the army of the taghuti system. However, you see that those brilliant figures managed to welcome the Islamic Republic and to make a large section of the Army follow them.
When Shahid Babai was the commander of the Isfahan Air Force base, I went and visited the base. The entirety of the base which had Shahid Babai as its commander – he was a colonel then: a pious and revolutionary man – used to be run like a basiji organization. I went and visited different places in the base.
Shahid Sayyad was the manifestation of revolutionary dynamism and religious faith and belief. This was one of the things that happened in the Army: former elements – many of them – welcomed the Islamic Republic. I mentioned only a few of them. A large number of them attained the lofty position of martyrdom and some of them were active in public services. They rendered services, worked and endeavored hard and we were witness to their efforts.
Secondly, the army laid down its life in all arenas. In confronting secessionists who were dependent on foreign powers in the beginning of the Revolution, the Army was one of the forces that entered the arena and that worked in certain parts of the country. During the eight-year Sacred Defense Era, the Army showed its presence in an eye-catching manner. It had the same performance in defending the borders of the country in the years following our victory in the Sacred Defense Era. The Army has played a part in supporting the Resistance Front. These courses of action have been recorded and they will be clarified, announced, written and published in due time in the future.
Thirdly, the Army transformed its domestic capabilities. It transformed its organization, its operational tactics, its structure, its thinking and its army culture. The religious and faith-based spirit in the military academies of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army is a very outstanding and important phenomenon, but it has not been achieved easily. In the course of time, pious and competent commanders managed to establish these traditions in a deep and persistent manner. The anti-religion orientations of the taghuti army have completely changed. They have turned into religious, cultural and Islamic orientations.
The next point is about the future. Well, we have become familiar with the nature of the Islamic Army and we have briefly discussed the current assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army. There are certain responsibilities for the future.
My dear ones, you should see what a free nation means. When they say that freedom is a value, what does the freedom of a nation rely on? Which nation is referred to as a free nation? A free nation is a nation that wills and that acts freely, that identifies its true and national interests and that safeguards those interests with its independence in the area of willpower and action. A free nation needs these things. It is these characteristics and qualities that introduce a free nation to us.
If a nation manages to make this correct decision and to avoid being influenced by the enemy’s calculation sabotage, it will achieve good results. As for calculation sabotage, notice that one of the primary tasks of the enemy is to change the calculations of the officials and intellectuals of the country and secondly those of the masses of the people. He wants to influence their calculations.
For example, imagine that you succeed in installing a virus in someone’s personal computer with the result that the computer produces false and wrong data. The enemy sometimes influences the public and general computer of the country’s management, its thinking and its calculations. A free nation is a nation that does not accept this influence, that thinks freely in the true sense of the word, that acts with courage and that pursues its own national interests. Well, what does this require? It requires insight.
If we do not have insight, if we do not benefit from correct thinking, from open eyes and from vigilance, we will not correctly identify our true interests, we will not successfully find the path to achieving those interests and we will not correctly identify the person who should undertake this heavy load. When there is no insight, we look like a person who has no eyes and who consequently fails to see the path. Insight is this significant for a country, a nation and the masses of people in that country. If these qualities exist in a country and nation, that nation will achieve the desired results.
Of course, this brings about certain requirements for all groups of people including our Armed Forces. We should not think that some people have insight in the country and therefore, the Armed Forces should blindly obey whatever they say. No, insight is a public quality. This is the case in the Islamic government. In the Islamic government, each and every one of you should think, deliberate, identify, decide and act. You should feel responsible and you should take care not to let the enemy influence your mental calculations.
Now, a number of conclusions are obtained from the last point that I raised: the first conclusion is that the enemy should not be trusted. There should not be any naïve optimism.
The second conclusion is that we should not take our eyes off the enemy’s moves. We should constantly watch his moves. One of the important divisions in our Armed Forces is intelligence and intelligence-related awareness. We should not take our eyes off the enemy’s moves. We should always be wary of his plans, his plots and his moves.
The third conclusion is that the enemy should not be viewed as small and weak, as Sa’adi says, “…the enemy cannot be considered small and weak.” We should try to know the enemy with his own dimensions and then, we should be prepared to defend ourselves against his transgressions.
My dear ones another requirement is that one should not become too proud of victories. Victories are valuable and we can be happy about them, but we should not become overconfident with victory. There are many individuals who face certain problems for some reasons after they have initially achieved a victory. The well-known historic example in this regard is the Battle of Uhud during the time of the Holy Prophet. The Holy Prophet himself was present and Muslims won, but one case of negligence turns the victory into defeat, making a great commander like Hamza the Master of Masters be martyred as well as many others. Many were wounded as well and the army of Islam was defeated.
Victory should be preserved. Preserving victory depends on preserving the elements that lead to that victory. These elements include faith, persistent jihad, constant diligence, unity and cooperation. These elements should not be lost.
My dear ones, we should not become busy with trivial materialistic diversions either. Many of us humans have good motives and lofty determination. However, sometimes small and trivial diversions seem very important to us. Pursuing positions, wealth and lust sometimes keep us busy. When we busy ourselves with these things, we let go of our goal. I said that there should be constant diligence, but with those diversions, diligence and victory will be lost. Therefore, we should pay attention that we should preserve the elements leading to our victory and we should not busy ourselves with diversions.
What concerns the Armed Forces and the forces which preserve security in this regard is that they should be careful about fitna. The Holy Quran says, “For tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter” [The Holy Quran, 2: 191] and “tumult and oppression are graver than slaughter.” [The Holy Quran, 2: 217]. The Arabic word “ashad” means, “harder” and the word “akbar” means “graver, greater.” Slaughter is bad and abhorrent, but fitna is worse than that. If fitna is worse than murder, the forces which undertake security should take the necessary deployment against it. They should keep being prepared to confront fitna. This is what organizations should pay attention to.
And the last point that I want to discuss is about hope for the future. From what I see in your statements and in your moves and in the conduct of the youth of the country in different organizations – whether the youth in the Armed Forces or youth in other organizations – I understand that our youth are thankfully full of hope. Despite the foolish desire of the enemy - who wants to eradicate such hope and such bright spots in the hearts of the people - hope is thankfully abundant in the country. This hope should be preserved and we should be confident that Allah the Exalted will fulfil His promises.
Today, we are witnessing the fulfilment of divine promises in front of our eyes. My dear ones, Israeli forces had managed to defeat the forces of three Arab countries in the course of six days. In another war, they managed to defeat those countries in the course of 10, 12 days. So, who would have thought that that well-equipped and dominant force that had defeated the armies of three countries would be forced to retreat and to suffer defeat by the pious youth of Hezbollah? It threw in the towel in the course of just 33 days!
More importantly, it was once defeated in the face of the determined Palestinian youth in Gaza – in tiny Gaza – in the course of 22 days and another time in the course of seven days and after that, it called for ceasefire. Who would have thought this? When there is resistance, patience, reliance on God and belief in divine promises, this is what happens. We witnessed these events up close. From now on too, it will be the same.
In the present time, we can see that arrogance has been frustrated until today despite the massive sums of money that it has spent in West Asia – in our region. They themselves are acknowledging this. They say that they have spent seven trillion dollars and they have gained nothing! They are acknowledging this themselves. This shows that one can trust in and rely on the power of spiritual faith and that one can be hopeful about the future.
And I will tell you that the Return Marches that are being held in Gaza these days will one day lead to the return of the Palestinians to their land in the true sense of the word and the true owners of that land will return to it, God willing. I ask Allah the Exalted to bestow His blessings on each and every one of you and on your family members.
Greetings be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings
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