The following is the full text of the speech delivered on April 11, 2010 by Ayatollah Khamenei the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in a meeting with a group of high-ranking military and police officials in Tehran.
In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful
I would like to congratulate all you dear brothers who are shouldering heavy responsibilities on the occasion of Norouz and the arrival of the spring - the season of vitality, freshness, and revitalization. I have been witness to your efforts in different areas. Hopefully, God will accept these efforts from all of you, and He will provide you with the opportunity to enter and succeed in other vast arenas through intensified labor and efforts. God willing, He will give you the opportunity to help the Armed Forces reach a position that this government and faithful, sincere, and hardworking elements like you deserve.
The existence of sincere and friendly officials is indeed one of the greatest divine blessings for the Armed Forces in this era. One must consider this a truly great blessing and thank God for it. Selflessness, which was manifested by the Islamic Republic most notably during the Sacred Defense Era, is of essential importance - that is, "considering oneself of secondary importance and not considering the goal as dependant on oneself" truly deserve gratitude. This does not mean that we have had no insincere individuals so far. After all, there are all kinds of attitudes among different individuals and social classes. But this is the general attitude. When I look at you dear commanders, I really thank God for being generous to this nation and assigning such faithful and sincere elements to these great positions of responsibility.
You gentlemen who are God's blessing for us should also be thankful to Allah the Exalted for providing you with the opportunity to shoulder important duties. All of us - including me and every one of you - could have been an ordinary person living an ordinary life. We could have been a good businessman, a good clergyman, or a good academic and could have been making efforts just to promote our personal interests without expecting a divine reward for our efforts. That is because what we are doing is very likely to bring about spiritual rewards or retribution. We are shouldering heavy responsibilities. You could have been a different person living an ordinary life without having this important role in your country and your government. Therefore, you need to be thankful for having a position that gives you the opportunity to play an important role. Your presence, determination, knowledge, and sincerity can affect the fate and history of the country as well as the future of this nation. And if this effect is positive, then it will be superior to everything else and nothing will be equivalent to it. If you can establish a trend or do something that prepares the ground for the prosperity of a nation and brings about religious and material benefits for the nation, your work will be incomparable to all kinds of worshiping, praying, or ordinary services to God's servants. Your work will be superior. God has provided you and me with this opportunity. Therefore, we need to be thankful for it. However, just like all great achievements that bring about great benefits, this opportunity necessitates heavy costs and dangerous requirements. "Whoever reaps the benefits should pay the costs." The higher one's position is, the more serious the dangers are.
And the way to counter these dangers is to fulfill our obligations and fight our illegitimate passions. It is not the case that we are faced with too many ambiguities and that we are confused. We should only fight the passions that go against sharia and religion and constantly take our obligations and religious duties into consideration. If you tread this path - which is not of course an easy task - it will become clear what you should do. Therefore, we should ask Allah the Exalted not to turn His blessing - that is to say, the opportunity to be in a position where we can play a role in the fate of the country and the people - into retribution for us. We should ask Him not to turn that source of blessing into a burden. I think these are among the things that people like you and I should do. This depends on our own efforts. And if we ask God for assistance and try hard, it will become possible.
As the Commander of the Faithful (a.s.) said, the armed forces of a country act like ramparts. They are like protective walls built around a country. Ramparts must always remain firm and impenetrable. For this reason, the Armed Forces must always maintain their solidity. There may be various events and circumstances inside the protective walls. Some people may be asleep. Some people may be awake. Some people may be fighting. Some people may be taking part in wedding ceremonies. Some people may be mourning. But these walls should remain solid in all circumstances. You should consider the Armed Forces from this prospective. They must always maintain their solidity. If they remain solid, if the sentries on the walls stay constantly vigilant and watch the enemy movements, and if they do not allow any security breaches, the security inside the walls will be safeguarded. And thanks to this security, the people will be able to attend to their religious and daily life concerns. The people living inside the walls will not be able to do so in the absence of security. Therefore, strengthening the Armed Forces is a religious principle that cannot be ignored. Everybody must stay vigilant. The Armed Forces must also be vigilant. The government should pay attention to this point, and the people should support it. The ramparts must remain solid. In all circumstances and regardless of what happens inside the walls, the Armed Forces must continue protecting the country.
This is an analogy, and ramparts mean different things. You are like ramparts. The Army, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, the Basij Forces, the Police, and the Intelligence Agency are all different kinds of ramparts. Each of them must take this into consideration and maintain their solidity when carrying out their respective responsibilities.
The world is currently full of bullying and oppression. The global situation is bad. The world is full of ignorance. Lecherous and bullying people are dominant over the majority of the people of the world. One should be very cautious in such a situation and act in a vigilant, prudent, and courageous manner. You can see how the heads of governments behave across the world. You can see what tragedies they are causing across the world just to fulfill their greed, to support the companies they have sanctioned, and to prepare the ground for great capitalists and managers of great companies to line their pockets. Of course they are doing all of this while shouting empty and false slogans. They are warmongers, but they talk about peace and gather under the banner of peace. They have no respect for humans and human rights, but they gather under the banner of human rights. They are aggressive and aggression is among their basic policies, but they claim to be opposed to aggression. They make use of all immoral methods in their policies and actions. They use terror. They establish and employ terrorist organizations, and you can see the examples of these actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are obvious realities in the modern world. You are aware of the coups they have caused. You know about their attacks against other countries. Yet you see a calm, neat, sweet smelling, and well-spoken person appear in front of people's eyes and speak as the president of a certain country. They play with public opinion or try to mislead it. Their work is based on deception. The modern world is like this. It is based on lies, deception, oppression, and masked coercion - though they sometimes remove their masks. Sometimes their arrogance and their confidence in the shaky foundations of their power cause them to lose control of things. As you saw, a few days ago the US President implicitly threatened to use atomic weapons. That was a very strange remark. The world must not at all pass over this remark. In the 21st century, which is filled with all those claims in support of peace, human rights, global organizations, fighting terrorism, and other such things, the president of a country stands up and threatens to launch nuclear attacks! This is a very strange remark in the world.
This will work against their interests. They do not understand. The clear message that this remark conveys is that the US government is an evil and unreliable government. They have been trying for years to prove that the Islamic Republic cannot be trusted regarding the nuclear issue. This is while the Islamic Republic has neither started a war against a country during the past 30 years, nor has it trained terrorists. They want to say that the Islamic Republic is not trustworthy. Who cannot be trusted in the world? Those who both have atomic bombs and are shameless enough to declare that they may use them. That is a very strange remark. That is a source of disgrace for them.
It is necessary to be extremely cautious in such a world. Of course dealing with this oppression, bullying, and masked or unmasked coercion is not limited to military preparedness. Psychological preparedness is more important. National determination is more important. National resistance against these storms is more important than military preparedness. Storms come and go, no matter how strong they are. The important point is to be able to withstand them. The problem with the buildings that collapse is that they are not firm enough to withstand the storm long enough. Otherwise storms are not permanent. If a nation stands firm and maintains its resistance, it will be able to withstand the storms, which come and go. Storms will go away, but a strong nation will stay.
The strength of a government depends on religious faith, the power of resistance, strong determination, and not being deceived by the compliments that are sometimes easily exchanged in many political interactions. But these compliments are there to mask the violent and furious face of people with evil intentions. The examples abound in our own time, and many such things have happened to us as well as various other countries over the past few decades. We have been witness to many such things. Being careful, not being deceived, having self-confidence, reliance on Allah the Exalted, increasing the ability to resist, and believing that it is possible to be powerful and to resist - these are the factors that keep nations from collapsing.
Fortunately, the ground has been prepared for all of these factors. It is 30 years now that the Iranian nation has been resisting in the face of various storms, and this Revolution has become stronger. Today we are far stronger than we used to be 10, 20, or 30 years ago. We are far more powerful in all areas. We have proven this in the face of various kinds of hostilities. By Allah's grace and favor, our nation has proven that it is far more powerful now. Therefore, this is the measure of genuine power.
But as I said, these protective walls must not be vulnerable to any breaches of security. It is a fact that the people living inside these walls are standing firm, but the walls - that is, the Armed Forces - must be kept strong. First of all, the Armed Forces must take the threats seriously - I have repeated this several times before. Your evaluations should not be like political evaluations of threat. Political evaluations say that, for example, the possibility of an enemy attack is weak - 20 or 30 percent. You should say that the possibility of an attack is 100 percent. And you should maintain your preparedness in all areas on the basis of this evaluation. It is necessary to be constantly vigilant.
I believe the issue of innovative ideas should also be taken seriously. Fortunately, this is already the case with the Armed Forces. The talents of our people are like a massive iceberg only the tip of which has been utilized. The majority of these talents are still intact. One can see that in the beginning of the Revolution only a small portion of these talents used to be utilized in different areas. The Revolution accelerated the process in scientific, technological, reconstruction, cultural, and political areas. Talents started to flourish. That is to say, different layers of talents were utilized one after the other. This experience shows us that our capacities are very high.
You should go after innovative activities. You should go after the ideas that have not been explored in the world - regarding warfare and intelligence strategies as well as the methods of dealing with the enemy. Deception and plotting should be handled in different ways. These are important issues. I would especially emphasize the way the Armed Forces are organized. Fortunately, both the Army and the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution are heading in this direction. Their thoughts and efforts are in this direction. There have been several innovations in traditional military organization, which have been realized in different ways in the Army and the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Go after innovative ideas. Of course not every innovation is good. Good innovations are the ones that are accompanied by careful consideration and meticulous testing. Go after innovations. This has been the case in different parts of the Armed Forces so far. The movement towards self-sufficiency of the Army is one of those innovations, and great achievements have been made since thirty years ago. In the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution there have been numerous activities in this regard. Thankfully, we are not short of promising experiences. Great achievements can be made now.
That is almost all I wanted to say today. By Allah's favor, all the points I discussed and the ones I did not discuss today - which are among my wishes - will be manifested in your activities and plans. All of these things have a spirit as well - that is to say, spirituality, religious insight, and strengthening of religious beliefs which manifest themselves in different ways through the efforts of our active and hardworking brothers in charge of ideological matters in Sepah and elsewhere. These brothers should pay attention to the issue of priorities, innovations, and intensified labor so that religious practices and ideological commitment are promoted on a daily basis in our Armed Forces.
Greetings be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings