Statements at Imam Hossein (AS) Officer University

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

I sincerely congratulate you, dear young people, on the successes you have achieved in this youthful period—both to the graduates of this proud university and to the young individuals who today received their epaulettes and will officially participate in the training of the Guardians. I ask God the Almighty for your success.

Today's ceremony was beautiful, magnificent, and full of substance and meaning. Such expectations are held for the dear Guardians, the tested ones in the difficult fields of jihad in the way of God. I hope that day by day, your successes will increase from the Almighty Lord.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was born in one of the most sensitive, complex, and intricate conditions in the history of this country. Its birth was not easy. From the very beginning of the emergence and birth of this blessed institution, difficult responsibilities were placed upon it. The capital of the Guard in those early days was nothing but faith, motivation, and revolutionary fervor. Of course, the youth had various qualifications; they had come from universities, from some military centers, and had personal backgrounds and qualifications; however, they had no experience or tools for that difficult field at their disposal. Their invaluable capital was their faith, their revolutionary fervor, their readiness for struggle, and their willingness to risk their lives in this difficult field, and they succeeded. It was not long after the birth of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that serious conflicts began. Faithful youth across the country or in Tehran faced real battlefields. The first exercises of the Guard were real battles. They truly had to risk their lives and enter the field, and they did.

Thanks to that revolutionary fervor, all the other necessary elements were obtained: they gained experience; the spirit of innovation surged within them; learning and acquiring knowledge created a tremendous scientific and intellectual commotion among them. They learned everything they needed. What was necessary for their spiritual and material battlefields was created through their own innovation, and they shone in the battlefields; both in border battles against the invading and aggressive enemies, and in the revolutionary jihad battles in the tumultuous and ambiguous fields within society; and they succeeded.

My dear youth! Those sincere and selfless men who laid the foundation of the Guard and established the basis of this blessed institution were such men. Thanks to them, the Guard was able to introduce and establish itself in the country as an active and innovative revolutionary institution with the export of human resources to other organizations. Over these continuous years—in these thirty-two years—thanks to the solid foundation that the faithful individuals created, the Guard has been present in various arenas and has shone and performed well, clearly demonstrating its impact on the revolutionary movement and the forward momentum of this society. Of course, some of them attained the grace of martyrdom, reached the honor of martyrdom, and many, thanks be to God, remained alive and played their roles. However, the issues of the country, the country's need for innovative and fervent jihad forces arising from insight, are increasing day by day. The ever-renewing foundation of the Guard must be formed in these training institutions, in this university, and in confronting various events. Today, that foundation is you. You will form the future of the Guard. You are the blessed saplings upon which this solid structure will rely and emerge in the coming decades, in the coming years, through various tests it will face. Prepare yourselves for such an important and difficult mission.

If the foundations and rules in an institution are not solid and healthy, the structure that will form will not be reassuring. The reassuring foundation of the Guard over these continuous years was, thanks to the faith and the selfless efforts of the men who laid the main foundation of the Guard. The Almighty God also assisted them, the sacred defense field became their testing ground, and the presence of the Imam and the blessings of his statements were always a guiding light; thus, they were able to fulfill this mission correctly. You too must prepare yourselves today to build that future.

And I tell you; in parallel with the progress of society, in parallel with the advancement of techniques and sciences in the human world, and in parallel with the natural evolutionary movement of humanity, your work today is more important, more complex, more delicate, and more demanding of precision and the expression of innate abilities than the work of your predecessors thirty years ago. Just as today our revolution and the system that emerged from that revolution are at much higher levels than thirty years ago, the men of this system, the innovative fighters in this system, and at the forefront of this system must also be ahead, more advanced; more knowledgeable, more refined, braver, and more insightful than that glorious past. And this is indeed the case.

I tell you; today our insightful and faithful youth, due to the conditions and circumstances they observe in the historical movement of our nation and the historical movement of the world, are ahead of those youth of the early revolution. In the early revolution, those who sacrificed themselves in the field of revolution were motivated by faith and belief in a bright future; however, today's youth see that future before their eyes.

The Almighty God fulfilled His promise to this nation. God has promised that if you step forward with faith in the field of effort and struggle, He will assist you and grant you victory: "If God helps you, no one can overcome you"; when God provides you with assistance and grants you victory, no power can overcome you. This is God's promise; this promise is seen by our nation and our youth today before their eyes.

The military, financial, propaganda, and political empire dominating the world—namely the Great Satan, America—with all its might, with everything it had in its arsenal, entered the field of the Islamic Republic, entered the field of the revolution, and was confident that it would bring the revolution to its knees. Today, after thirty years, look and see what has happened in the world; they have been brought to their knees. America's very sensitive and decisive policy in the Middle East has completely failed; everyone sees this and acknowledges it. They have failed in Palestine. They have lost their mercenaries, allies, and close companions. Once, only the corrupt Pahlavi regime was lost to them; today, other regimes have been lost to them or are on the verge of being lost; therefore, they are unstable. Today, America is isolated in the region of Western Asia—namely the same region of North Africa and the area they call the "Middle East". Today, Islam is alive in this region. Today, youth enter the field with Islamic slogans. Once, thirty years ago, forty years ago, in these North African countries, if someone wanted to speak of national and revolutionary motivations, they resorted to leftist slogans; today, those words are obsolete, those words have been relegated to the trash bin. Today, in this region, the prevailing discourse, the prevailing currency, the decisive word is Islam and the Quran. Is this not a significant achievement? This is the very thing that when the Islamic revolution triumphed, the Islamic Republic raised the flag in this region in the name of Islam and the Quran, they trembled. They said such a thing might happen, thus they tried to prevent it; however, despite them, it has happened today. Our youth today see this before their eyes.

When the mother of Prophet Moses cast him into the water, the Almighty God made two promises to her. He said: "We will return him to you and make him one of our messengers"; shortly thereafter, the child returned to his mother. God says: "We returned him to his mother so that her eyes may be comforted and she may not grieve and so that she may know that God's promise is true". The part of the promise that God provided to the Iranian nation is much greater than this. Who would have imagined that Palestinian youth would dare to organize in the name of Islam, shout in the name of Islam, and attack the ruthless occupying Zionist forces in the name of Islam? This has happened. In the past two weeks, on "Yawm al-Nakba", the youth broke the borders of Israel for the first time after sixty years. This is the same "and so that you may know that God's promise is true". This shows that you should know the divine promise that says: "He will make this religion victorious over all other ideologies and religions"—the Almighty God will make this religion, this mission victorious over all the intellectual and religious products of the world—is indeed true. God is fulfilling these immediate promises; the only condition is that you and I, who have been the vanguard soldiers of this movement in contemporary times, should not falter, and our attention should not wander elsewhere.

The great and unforgivable sin of those who looked back during the great revolutionary movement of the Iranian nation, who looked to themselves—to their desires, to their power-seeking—forgot that this nation revolted for what purpose and what this movement means, is that they faltered. Of course, the nation, thanks be to God, did not learn from them and will not learn, but we all must be vigilant. In this great and rapid movement forward, which the Almighty God is also presenting the tidings of victory before our eyes, no one should falter.

My dear youth! You are among the chosen ones of this forward movement; prepare yourselves. You need knowledge, learn; you need to purify your souls, engage in that. If we do not purify ourselves, the alluring material manifestations of the world will occupy us. When those who are on a path forget what their goal is, when a coffee house along the way distracts them, when they forget where they were going, a great danger will threaten them. Be vigilant; knowledge, soul purification, experience, and in the military environment, discipline. Discipline arising from spiritual motivations will certainly have a much greater impact than regulatory and formal disciplines. Fortunately, today the armed forces in various organizations—both in the army, in the Guard, in the police force, and in the vast Basij organization—possess this spiritual capital. Today, our youth in the armed forces think meaningfully; and this is a great opportunity and promises a great future.

O Lord! Make these dear youth true soldiers of Islam and the Quran. O Lord! Grant them the success to continue this path and include them in the prayers of the Awaited Savior.

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