Iran: Diplomacy With Washington a Diplomatic 'Jihad'
Friday, 13 Mar 2015 10:04 PM
By Joel Himelfarb
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani described his country’s diplomacy with the United States as a "jihad" that is just as important to the Islamic Republic's advancement as all of the missiles and other new weaponry the Iranian military has recently displayed, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Rouhani vowed to carry on the jihad in the diplomatic arena while praising the Iranian military leadership for standing "against the enemy on the battlefield."
Rouhani’s comments "echo those of foreign minister and lead nuclear negotiator Javad Zarif, who said Tuesday that Iran has emerged as 'the winner' in talks with Western powers," the website noted.
"We are the winner whether the [nuclear] negotiations yield results or not," Zarif was quoted as saying. "The capital we have obtained over the years is dignity and self-esteem, a capital that could not be retaken."
According to Rouhani, Iran is now "10 times more powerful" than it was during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, something which "reflects a serious deterrence to the enemies' threats."
This continues what has been an almost constant Iranian refrain since the nuclear talks started in late 2013 – that Iran is on the rise, that the United States is weak, and that President Obama cannot stop Iran.
"Obama is the weakest of U.S. presidents, he had humiliating defeats in the region," Ali Younesi, senior adviser to Rouhani, said in October.
"Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama's era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran," Younesi said, according to a translation of an interview provided to the Free Beacon.
The truculent rhetoric cannot be dismissed as just idle bluster. In February, for example, four former U.S. military and intelligence officials wrote that "we know enough now to make a prudent judgment that Iran should be regarded by national security decision makers as a nuclear missile state capable of posing an existential threat to the United States and its allies."
In January, the Jerusalem Post reported that Iran had deployed a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) "whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe." It was also shown on Israeli television.
On Sunday, Iran unveiled a new ground-to-ground cruise missile with a range of 1,500 miles, enhancing its capability of targeting U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf, as well as Israel, the Arab Gulf states, and parts of Eastern and Central Europe.
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