You have commented 375 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Rafsanjani Speaks
2007-07-13
Just what is it that is gonna wake us up?

By Michael Rubin

Former President and current Expediency Council chairman Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom many in Washington consider a possible partner, gave Iran's official weekly sermon today. Among his points, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency :

* The U.S. doesn't declare its true casualty figures in Iraq (A recurrent propaganda line, Persian headline and text, here).

* "The whole oppression against the Muslim nation of Iran originates from the US"

* "[The Americans] are receiving an appropriate response from the Almighty God in Iraq and Afghanistan."

* "What a superpower the US is when it can be easily trapped in a small country like Iraq?"

* "The Americans remember their escape from Vietnam and they will have to repeat the same experience in a worse way in Iraq."

* "The US forces have no security in Afghanistan and have failed to materialize their declared objectives in that country."

Me: The idea floating around Washington that Iraq can be separated from Afghanistan is naive. The Iranians, who interfere in both, have the same objectives in both. Iraq is a laboratory. If strategies applied there cause the U.S. Congress to embrace defeat, then those same strategies will be applied in Afghanistan.

And those inclined to accept Rafsanjani's veracity in the hopes that he might be a sincere diplomatic partner might note his statement:

"Iran has proved the fact that it never uses unconventional warfare. We could use chemical weapons in our war with Iraq as the Iraqis did, but we didn't."

This is an outright lie. Between 1984 and 1988, Iran used chemical weapons against Iraqi forces (who first used CW against Iran in 1983). And, of course, in a similar sermon on December 14, 2001, Rafsanjani said the Islamic Republic would consider first use of a nuclear weapon should it achieve that capability.
Posted by:Sherry

#3  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2007-07-13 23:10  

#2  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Harry Reid   2007-07-13 22:22  

#1  comments); ?>werwer
Posted by: Zenster   2007-07-13 22:16  

00:00