Statements in Meeting with Veterans and Activists of Sacred Defense and Resistance

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Thanks be to God, the Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon our master and prophet, Abu al-Qasim al-Mustafa Muhammad, and upon his pure and chosen progeny, especially the Awaited One on the earth.

Welcome, dear brothers and sisters. The brothers and sisters have raised good points, some of which pertain to the collection of memories of the war and issues of the Sacred Defense, which those gentlemen should follow up on; some also relate to government agencies, and our office brothers should follow up to ensure that what has been said is reviewed and that what is practical and beneficial, God willing, is realized.

The fact that especially the veterans are given attention during the week of Sacred Defense is due to the value of being a pioneer and leading in important events: "Race towards forgiveness from your Lord"; (2) taking the lead and stepping into untraveled paths is a value. Of course, the week of Sacred Defense belongs to all warriors, Mojahedin, martyrs, and their families, and the like, but the veterans and those who entered the field earlier, more quickly, and more seriously have an additional value. Whether a veteran is a commander, an ordinary warrior, a doctor, a rescuer, a jihadist, or a supporter, all of them are deserving of this special praise and respect; we have seen various types of these veterans in the early days of the Sacred Defense and have observed their roles.

The matter that is good for us to present today regarding the topic of Sacred Defense for the audience mainly revolves around two issues; of course, there is a third issue that I will not have time to discuss today. One of these two fundamental topics is the "why" of the eight-year war. Our young generation, who did not experience the war and the revolution, should understand why the Islamic Republic entered into a battle that lasted eight years; eight years is not a short time [in which] all the pillars of the country and the country's resources are dedicated to defending the country. What was the reason for our entry into the war? We should know this. I will say a few words about this today.

The second topic that should be considered for today's audience is a report-like account of the war; a report on the war. I will say a few words about the report today. While we are speaking, you dear ones who are present in this session and the large crowd who are listening from afar are currently the audience of these words, but the audience of these words is not only you; rather, the young generation, the future generation, your children, all must think about these topics, work on them, and learn from them. These are the two topics I will briefly address. There is a significant third topic that I will not have time to discuss today, which is the benefits and results that arose from this Sacred Defense. Fortunately, some of those who spoke here made a reference to this topic.

However, the issue of the "why": "Why did this war begin?" I say that the motivation for the attack on Iran's borders was not specific to Saddam and the Ba'ath Party. It can be said that the motivation of the leaders of the global order of that day for Saddam's attack on Iran's borders was much greater, at least as much as his own. That is to say, there were two great powers in the world at that time, each with their own followers; those two powers were the United States and the former Soviet Union; each of them had a set of governments and political systems that were almost all motivated in this matter. The Islamic Republic, Islamic Iran was an intolerable element for them; why? The question is: Why was Islamic Iran intolerable? We had not taken any action against anyone at that time. Now they say to us that you provided missiles to such and such a place, you provided drones to such and such a place, [but] at that time, there was none of this talk; [so] what was the reason for the enmity? This is the main point. The reason was that in this sensitive point of the world, an unparalleled popular revolution had emerged and had presented a new thought for the administration of the world; the prevailing order of that day could not tolerate this new thought; that was the issue. The world at that time was a world of domination; of course, it still is today, but at that time, there was no voice, no shout, no clear stance against this false and destructive order of virtues; the world order was a system of domination.

What does "the system of domination" mean? It means the world is divided into two parts: some countries are dominators, and some countries are dominated; there is no third option. The Islamic Republic, the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic system was a clear shout against this order: "What does it mean? Why should there be domination? Why should a certain country, simply because it has advanced military equipment, have the right to impose its opinion, its culture, its demands on a collection of countries? Why?" The Islamic Republic was a new voice against this false order, and the world's bullies, the world's dominators could not tolerate it; they knew that this word, this thought, had the characteristic of spreading in the world — they understood it correctly — and it did spread; this thought spread in the world and attracted nations, which later, I will say a word about the attractions of this movement.

All of them — whether the United States, the Soviet Union, NATO countries that were followers of the United States, or Warsaw Pact countries that were followers of the Soviet Union — were waiting for an opportunity, and Saddam provided that opportunity for them; an ambitious, power-hungry, greedy, brazen, oppressive, and reckless man, right at Iran's borders; they provoked him, and he attacked our country. Today, some from within our own ranks criticize the Islamic Republic, saying, "The Islamic Republic is at odds with the world, is angry with the world"; this is contrary to reality; such a thing is not true. If the intention is that we do not have political, economic work, interaction, or exchanges with the world, it is clear that this is contrary to reality; today we work with groups, we have exchanges, we interact, we trade with countries where more than half of the world's population lives. The ruckus that is sometimes observed from some that "we are at odds with everyone, we are bad with everyone" is not true; we are not at odds with everyone, we are not bad; if that is the meaning, it is not correct. If the intention is that we oppose the political order of the system of domination, then yes, that is correct.

Today, just like at the beginning of the revolution, we oppose the system of domination, we oppose the dominance of the United States. Today, the Soviet Union no longer exists, but the United States is at the head of the Western countries and is the sole power; we see the results of their actions: the wars that break out, the oppressions that occur, the discriminations that take place, the nations that are under pressure; we oppose these things, and we explicitly express our opposition. This situation that existed then still exists today; [however] the motivation for the attack on Iran's borders was that, and today, thanks to the steadfastness of the Iranian nation, thanks to the powerful presence of the Iranian nation in various arenas, they no longer have the courage to attack the borders, and they are engaged in other forms of cunning and enmity.

Of course, when I said that no one stood against that order, there were years before the Islamic Republic when the Non-Aligned Movement existed; we also entered this movement at the beginning of the revolution, and it still exists; however, many of the countries that were members of the Non-Aligned Movement — about a hundred and some countries — many of their leaders were under the influence of these superpowers! Some were under the influence of the United States, some under the influence of the Soviet Union; some were influenced, and some obeyed out of fear; they were afraid of the savagery of these great powers. At one of the Non-Aligned Movement meetings, after I had spoken there, a president from a region of the world said to me that everyone is afraid of the United States, except you; then he leaned closer and said, "I am also afraid of the United States!" They were afraid; therefore, the voice that was raised clearly against the global wrong order was the voice of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic Republic; its center was Iran, which they opposed; they opposed it then, and they oppose it today; that is the issue; we must understand this deeply; some do not understand this. The issue is not about nuclear energy or human rights or women's rights and such; these are pretexts. The issue is about bringing forth a new discourse against the false, corrupt, and discriminatory global order that is currently dominant over the world; that is the issue; they are in conflict with this, they oppose this. And this opposition will not cease as long as the Islamic Republic and the Iranian nation do not accept their bullying, which they will not accept.

I mentioned the "attractions of the Islamic Republic"; this had a significant impact; that is to say, it frightened them. There are two types of attractions in the Islamic Republic that must be preserved; [because] they attract nations: one is political attraction, and the other is spiritual attraction. The political attraction was this steadfastness against the global wrong order; this has political attraction. Nations, unlike powers, unlike governments, are inclined towards this political attraction; the feeling that there exists a system in the world that opposes this global wrong order, this bullying and interference of powers attracts their hearts. You see, whenever our presidents traveled to any of the Islamic countries, the nations welcomed them, showed attention to them, and expressed their affection; [this] is because of this. There is much to say in this regard. This is the political attraction.

The spiritual attraction is the attention to divine faith, religious faith in the Islamic system; this has attraction, it has a lot of attraction. In this materialistic world, young people in these so-called advanced and civilized countries feel emptiness. Today, even their own scholars and thinkers express this; they feel emptiness, they feel futility, and suicides are increasing day by day. Religious faith gives them a sense of refuge, warms their hearts; this is the characteristic of religious feeling. This is also an attraction in the Islamic Republic.

Therefore, the reason for the emergence of this military attack, the military aggression against our country, against our borders that led to the eight-year Sacred Defense, is these reasons; they were opposed. The attractions of the Islamic Republic frightened them, the new discourse of the Islamic Republic enraged them, and that is why they carried out this attack; they occupied the country for eight years. This is the first matter. Of course, this [matter] has much to discuss; it is appropriate for those who are thinkers, those who are writers, to speak, write, work, and clarify in this regard.

Now, regarding the second matter: the report of the war incident. There are two reports; two types of reports can be given about the war: one report, which I refer to as descriptive, is a report on the form of the war: how the war began, how it continued, where it ended, what the situation of both sides was; this is one type of report; a descriptive report. There is another type of report that I consider more important: an explanatory report; it clarifies the essence of the war, the spirit of the front for us. Today's youth need to be informed in both areas, and work must be done. I will just mention and outline these; work must be done on these, efforts must be made; of course, thanks be to God, good work has been done, and it must continue.

However, the issue of the descriptive report of the war is this: there was an attacking army that invaded our borders; on one side, there was the aggressor with complete equipment and a pre-prepared plan. The one who wants to attack our borders sits down in advance and plans; unlike us, who are attacked, we are caught off guard; we have no plan; that was at the beginning of the revolution. He enters the field with a plan; his equipment is complete, his organization is orderly, his plan is pre-prepared, his support is continuously available, he has a strong engineering organization, he has solid communications, he has modern weapons; at that time, Saddam's army had the best tanks and the best airplanes. Unlimited money, unlimited money! Billions of dollars were at their disposal; these are the ones you know and recognize, they provided them. The United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe provided complete support, giving them everything they needed; they replaced worn-out weapons. The French government provided Saddam with its best fighter planes. The German government provided him with the chemical materials he needed. The American government continuously provided battlefield intelligence. Neighboring governments also provided him with money and resources. This Persian Gulf margin was a route where trucks and trailers carrying weapons and equipment were constantly going to Iraq. One side was like this; the aggressor was in this situation. I read in a report that the number of Saddam's fighter planes after the war was greater than the number of his planes at the beginning of the war! Even though so many of his planes were shot down, the number of his planes after the war was greater; that is to say, he was continuously helped and supplied. This was the aggressor's side.

The side being attacked, that is us, was exactly the opposite; our equipment was incomplete, our hands were empty, our equipment was irreplaceable. At the beginning of the war, some of the tanks of the 92nd Division that were facing the enemy were looted and taken away; nothing replaced them. I went to Ahvaz, and a brigade of the 92nd Division had about fifteen or sixteen tanks, [while] organizationally it should have had more than fifty tanks! This was the situation; nothing was being replaced; whatever we lost was gone, finished! Our combat organizations were compromised. The army's organization had come out from under the burden of war; many of the senior commanders of the army were not familiar with the army's assets. The late martyr Fallahi, the late Zahir Nejad — who were the heads of the army — were not aware of many of the things that were in the army; the reason was that their management area before the revolution was a very limited area; now they had become the heads of this army. The IRGC had not yet been properly organized. At the beginning of the war, the IRGC did not have a brigade organization; battalions of two or three hundred people were formed with a limited shape, with limited resources. Sometimes they did not even have individual weapons; we had seen in some places that they did not have enough individual weapons! This was the situation of the side being attacked.

Well, what should the result be? According to ordinary material standards and rules, the result should have been that the other side, as predicted, would pass through Khuzestan within a week, at most a few weeks, and enter the heart of the country and come towards Tehran; [but] it did not happen like that. This weak force, after about a year from the start of the war, showed its victories and brilliance; it inflicted successive fatal blows on that equipped and wealthy army that had all the support; in the end, after eight years, it expelled that army from the borders with disgrace. This is the description of the war over eight years; this is its summary. Now [that] the main factor in this progress and victory was, these are things that are in your hands, and you know; faith, struggle, and factors like these.

However, the subsequent report, which is the explanatory report, is more important, in my opinion. In the explanatory report, we say that this war was not just for the defense of the homeland. Of course, defending the homeland is a value — there is no doubt about this — but the issue of this war was above these matters; it was about defending Islam, acting according to the command of the Quran. This war was on a path that, in religious expressions and religious literature, is referred to as "jihad in the way of God"; the Sacred Defense was jihad in the way of God. The Sacred Defense kept the revolution alive, kept Islam alive, honored the Iranian nation, promoted the spiritual essence in the country, and revived the true human and faithful essence in the youth; the youths who went to the battlefield transformed from ordinary individuals into divine guardians; men who entered the battlefield with a simple and ordinary view of religious matters emerged from the battlefield like a divine and spiritual mystic. Our great Imam was a great mystic, a noble human being; he addressed many of the great ones, generally saying, "You have worshipped for seventy years, may God accept it from you, go read a little of the wills of the martyrs!" That is, this young man who entered the front and spent some time in jihad and put his life in God's hands has traversed the seventy-year path of that great mystic in a short time; the essence of the Imam's words is this.

This is the essence of our war period. The goal was Islam; therefore, the entire front was a place of worship. All kinds of people participated in this general statement of "turning the battlefield into a place of worship." We had gone to visit the area at midnight, and I saw an army officer or a non-commissioned officer standing next to a tank praying the night prayer! From the night prayer of an army officer next to his tank to the fervent and spirited gatherings of the IRGC and Basij youth in their headquarters, where they were present, to the pleading of an army officer to join the nighttime jihad groups of martyr Chamran. In those early days [of the war], we had just gone to Ahvaz, and one night an officer came to me — he was a second lieutenant or a captain; I do not remember — he said, "I have a request;" at first, I thought he wanted to request that he was having difficulties in his city, and they were not giving him leave; I thought it was something like that; then he said, "My request is that at night when martyr Chamran goes with a group to hunt tanks — as they say — allow me to join this group;" that is, a man of about forty or fifty years old is pleading to be allowed to go with these young people, around Chamran, to shoot tanks with an RPG; put this alongside the teenager who increases his age in his identification card to be able to go to the front; or cries and pleads with his father or mother to allow him to go to the front; we had these things. Prayers with humility, midnight tears, selfless services; or a commander who gets up at midnight to polish the shoes of his fighters, washes their clothes; in no army in the world, in no battlefield does this exist; this is specific to the Islamic Republic. In the last moments of life, he does not drink water so that his thirsty comrade does not die thirsty; he gives the water to him and himself dies thirsty. These are the things we read in history, which we either saw up close in this war or heard from those who had seen them.

Under enemy bombardment, a young man [who later] became a martyr writes a will, in which he advises about hijab; that is, spirituality and adherence to Islamic law and Islamic faith are at this level. In my opinion, this report on the war, this perspective on the war is more important than the descriptive report. Here, God Almighty shows His power in the victory of His righteous servants; here it becomes clear that God's will for His righteous servants is "Indeed, the earth belongs to God; He gives it to whom He wills of His servants" (3); the righteous servants of God receive divine support. They endure hardships — during the eight-year defense, the Iranian nation endured great hardships; the youth, families, fathers, mothers, spouses endured hardships — but God Almighty, following these hardships, granted dignity, victory, and support.

Well, both types of reports must be recorded and documented. Some know these things, have seen them, are aware of them, and should express them; some should also turn these into attractive products, which, of course, some of this work has been done. Last year, I said that the amount of work done should be multiplied by a hundred; (4) the reality is that we are lacking in these areas. During the revolution, during the war, if we had had advertising capabilities, the country's advancements would have been much greater than what has been achieved. We had limited advertising capabilities; on the contrary, the enemy had unlimited advertising capabilities; today, it is almost the same. Today, we must increase our capabilities as much as we can. Well, this pertains to the Sacred Defense.

Today, a similar event is taking place in Lebanon and Palestine. These events in Lebanon and Palestine are like the events of our imposed war and Sacred Defense; this is also jihad in the way of God. An Islamic country, namely Palestine, has been seized by the most wicked infidels in the world; the definitive religious ruling is that it is obligatory for all to strive, to help, and to return Palestine to the Muslims, to its rightful owners; to return Al-Aqsa Mosque. Here, a divine movement is taking place; the people of Palestine and Gaza, who are truly struggling, are indeed engaging in jihad in the way of God. Those who help them are assisting in jihad in the way of God; Hezbollah Lebanon, which shields itself for Gaza and faces these bitter events, is engaging in jihad in the way of God.

In this battle, too, the wicked infidel enemy is equipped with the most resources; the United States is behind them. The Americans say we have no involvement, we are unaware; they are lying; they are aware, they are involved, and they need the victory of the Zionist regime. This current American government, for the elections ahead, needs to show that it has supported the Zionist regime and made it victorious. Of course, they also need the votes of American Muslims, so they pretend they have no involvement; [but] they are involved. Thus, the enemy has money, weapons, resources, and global propaganda; the opposing side, the believers, the Mujahideen in the way of God, do not even have a fraction of those resources, but at the same time, the one who is victorious is the Mujahid in the way of God; the Palestinian resistance is victorious, Hezbollah is victorious. Until today, this victory has belonged to Hezbollah and the resistance forces; the reason is the massacre of the people. If the wicked Zionist regime had been able to defeat the fighters, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon, it would not have needed to show its face in the world in such a dark and ugly manner and commit these atrocities against homes, schools, hospitals, children, and women. It has not been able to; because it has not been able to overcome the resistance force, it is forced, it has no choice but to pretend to dominate by killing women, children, and defenseless people and vehicles on the road, in schools, and hospitals; thus, until now, it has been defeated.

Yes, they inflict blows; they have martyred some of the effective and valuable elements of Hezbollah, which undoubtedly is a loss for Hezbollah, but this is not a loss that would bring Hezbollah down; the organizational and human strength of Hezbollah is much greater than this; their power, capability, and strength are much greater than this that they would suffer a fundamental blow from these martyrdoms. Yes, of course, losing one person, especially if he is a commander and has a history of jihad in the way of God, is a loss; there is no doubt about that. Therefore, both until today have been victorious, and by God's grace, with divine support, the final victory in this battle will belong to the resistance front and the Hezbollah front.

My final point in this talk today is that I say our warriors, our Mujahideen, sacrificed their lives to ensure that the enemy's flag does not fly on our borders; they made sacrifices; the young fighters and Mujahideen made their families mourn so that the enemy's flag does not rise on the borders of this country; the Iranian nation cannot accept that the same flags be raised by infiltrators, by deceived individuals, inside the country! This flag, the flag of cultural infiltration and the lifestyle of the enemy and the hostile temptations of the enemy, must not be raised inside the country, in our various institutions! Care must be taken; everyone is obliged. In the Ministry of Education, care must be taken; in the media, care must be taken; in the press, care must be taken; in the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Health — which are places for educating the youth — care must be taken. There, the enemy was defeated by our warriors; the defeated enemy must not be allowed to continue its work and actions inside the country through various tricks and schemes.

We hope that God Almighty keeps all our officials, all our men and women, all our activists in various sectors fully alert against the enemy's plots.

Peace be upon you and God's mercy and blessings.