Burning effigies of Israel and Saudi Arabia, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards celebrated “Quds” [Jerusalem] Day, demonstrating the late Ayatollah’s Ruhollah Khomenei’s dream of destroying Israel and returning Palestinians to the Promised Land. Khomenei’s Shiite Muslim sect has no love for Palestinians but cleverly uses Palestinians to direct Iran’s collective misery on Israel and, according to Khomenei’s fanatical beliefs, his archenemy Saudi Arabia. To Iran’s revolutionary Shiites, their true enemy is not Israel but Wahhabi Sunni Islam, embodied in the Kingdom. Burning Israeli and Saudi effigies shows why the P5+1’s yeoman efforts to broker a nuke deal with Tehran isn’t worth the paper on which it’s written. Spewing hatred toward Israel and Saudi Arabia shows why neither country can back the current negotiations to end sanctions against the Persian nation.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani restrained himself from delivering an incendiary speech at the “Quds” festivities, where ski-masked voluntary forces present an ominous sight to foreign onlookers. Khomenei’s had no real beef with Israel other than whipping up pernicious propaganda to advance his radical Shiite cause. “Down with U.S., Israel and the House of Saud,” chanted frenzied onlookers, reading placards saying, “Zionist soldiers kill Muslims” and “The Saud family will fail,” all masking the dismal reality that Muslim-on-Muslim violence between Shiites and Sunnis kill more daily than any Jew or Christian. Watching carefully in Vienna where delicate last-ditch negotiations take place between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, outside observers question the legitimacy of any brokered nuke deal.
Speaking in Baghdad also celebrating “Quds” Day, radical Shiite cleric Sheikh Khaled Mullah warned that victory of Shiite Islam was near. “We tell our enemies, as long as we have the mobilization of young men, they will not be victorious,” said Mullah, touting the great strength of Badr, Ketaeb Hezbolland and Asaib Ahi al-Haq militias, all committed to battling Israel and Saudi Arabia. Israel and Saudi’s warning against any toothless nuke deal with Tehran rings true observing the openly hostile acts in Baghdad and Tehran against the Israeli and Saudi regimes. Watching the same hate play out in Baghdad betrays that the U.S. spent some $2 trillion and lost nearly 4,500 troops saving Iraq from Islamic insurgents. “We ask God bring back our Jerusalem and cleanse the land of Iraq from ISIS,” said Mullah. Mullah forgets that the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks controlled Jerusalem for over 1,000 years.
U.S. officials have long accused Tehran of spreading sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis, now pitting themselves against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran fought an eight-year war with Saddam Hussein, killing close to a million Shiites and Sunnis, costing nearly $1.2 trillion. No Israeli or Saudi has killed a fraction of the Muslims massacred by Iraqi and Iranian forces. Watching Iranians and Iraqis burn U.S., Israeli and Saudi effigies on “Quds” Day should give Vienna negotiators pause, not to compromise too much on Iranian demands. Hearing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warn the P5+1 that if the Vienna talks fail, Iran intends to ramp up its uranium enrichment program speaks volumes. While denying any military use, Khaemenei clearly wants the P5+1 to fear that Iran could, if it wanted, create an A-bomb like Pakistan did in 1998.
Khamenei joined in the “Quds” Day celebration, ripping the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. “There are two sides in oppression: oppressor & the oppressed. We back the oppressed and are against oppressors,” said Khamenei, showing he makes no distinction between Israelis or fellow Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Backing Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, Iran seeks to destabilize the Kingdom whose fanatical Shiite insurgents promise to march to Riyadh Iran’s fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, AKA ISIS or Daesh, reflects its opposition to Saudi-backed Wahhabi regimes waging an air war in Yemen against Houthi rebels. Speaking in Beirut, Iran’s Shiite-backed Hezbollah militia leader Hassan Nasrallah swore his loyalty to Khamenei. “No one can be with Palestine unless he is with the Islamic Republic of Iran. An enemy of Iran is an enemy of Palestine and Jerusalem,” said Nasrallah.
While Kerry and P5+1 negotiate with Iran on a nuke deal in Vienna, Iran’s Hezbollah militia states for the record Iran’s commitment to destroy Israel and Wahhabi regimes like Saudi Arabia. Ending sanctions against the Persian state will give Iran more resources to sponsor terrorism against Sunnis and Israel around the globe. “Terrorist groups such as Daesh and Al-Nusra, with the support of the Zionists and Saud’s cruel war against the oppressed people of Yemen . .. have created a new situation in the region and the world,” said Iran’s official IRNA news agency. Iran’s twisted geopolitics lumps Saudi Arabia, ISIS, al-Qaeda and Israel into the same boat, showing why its foreign policy often lashes out at the wrong enemy. Before U.S. and P5+1 ink the Vienna agreement, they need to consider the consequences of ending Iranian sanctions to the geopolitics of the Middle East.
