February 26, 2021
The Islamic Republic is escalating its campaign to convince the Iranian public the regime is an internationally recognized great power able to impact events around the world.
For example, it recently proclaimed that the Islamic Republic was central to Donald Trump’s failure to win re-election because Iran stymied his efforts to collapse the Iranian economy.
And it is also telling the Iranian public that Russia was so impressed by Iran’s military might when it fired missiles into a base used by US troops in Iraq that Moscow saw the Islamic Republic as changing “world equations.”
Iran has made numerous other assertions of might, power and influence over the world.
In the first case, it was President Rohani himself who said Trump lost re-election in part because of the failure of his efforts to bring the Iranian economy to collapse.
Rohani seemed unaware that Iran was not an issue in last year’s presidential election and the Democrats never said Trump was a failure because the Islamic Republic still exists.
Rohani said, “Trump did not realize the capacities and realities of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s capabilities at all and acted on the basis of his illusions. The White House’s failure in confrontation with Iran after two-and-a-half years of full-fledged economic war in addition to the failure of his international policies are the reasons behind Trump’s defeat in the recent elections in that country.”
In a meeting of the Admin-istration’s Economic Coordination Headquarters December 15, Rohani said the Iranian nation’s resistance against the US sanctions, pressures and economic war provided remarkable facts to the world and to ill-wishers.
“I advise all of those who seek to defeat Iran through measures like sanctions to drop such wrong and failed policies at the museum of history forever,” he added.
Although the US sanctions harmed the livelihood of the Iranian people, the “warmongers” who imposed sanctions and predicted the collapse of Iran’s economy in the short term are now leaving the White House, while Iran has emerged victorious in an unequal economic war, the president said.
Actually, Trump never forecast the collapse of Iran from sanctions. He said sanctions were re-imposed to force Iran back to the negotiating table to negotiate a new agreement. Of course, that hasn’t happened either.
As for Iran’s military might, a Pasdar commander has said last year’s retaliatory missile strike on the US military base of Ain al-Assad in Iraq was so impressive that Russia “admitted” Iran has changed “world equations.”
According to the Tasnim news agency, in comments at a military gathering, Brigadier General Hossain Nejat said the US hides the reality of what happened when Iran targeted the base with a barrage of missiles in January 2020 in retaliation for the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleymani.
“Everybody realized the US fear of Iran,” the deputy commander of the Pasdar Sarallah Base in Tehran said, adding that the Russians acknowledged that Iran has changed “world equations” by attacking an American military base, because nobody has been able to destroy any US military sites before, which is not correct.
But the strike, in which a quarter of the missiles missed the base entirely, did not destroy the base or even do much damage.
General Nejat said the Islamic Republic’s “spiritual support” for the “courageous combatants” in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq has helped those countries stand against the US and other bullies.