We have never begun a war in the Islamic Republic era. When needed, we have defended powerfully and solidly, 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 feels disgusted at remembering them and at how 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 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 the 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.