Iran leader’s harsh tone sets Iran on collision course

Iran Focus:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a blistering attack on “the corrupt global powers” that the Islamic Republic of Iran was on a historical mission to challenge “the domination of the corrupt financial and political powers on the international scene”, state-owned dailies reported on Tuesday.

“The only entity capable of challenging the hideous world order is a common international entity that is taking shape with the Islamic Republic of Iran at its core”, Khamenei told a group of hard-line university students, who frequently interrupted his speech with chants of “death to the opponents of the Supreme Leader, death to America, death to England (sic.)”.

“What is the place of the Islamic Republic of Iran from a historical perspective and with regard to its geopolitical situation?” Khamenei asked.

Khamenei noted intriguingly that “the Islamic Republic of Iran has resolved the nuclear problem”, in what some analysts believe could be a hint at a possible breakthrough in the theocratic state’s quest to develop nuclear weapons. READ MORE

“We have been able to make palpable progress along the directions that the [Islamic] Revolution set for us”, Khamenei said. “It is no small matter that the world’s political power centres acknowledge that Iran has become a regional power and warn that if such and such steps are not taken, Iran will become a global power”.

Khamenei said the Islamic Republic of Iran “is in the hearts of Muslim nations around the world”.

“We have strategic depth in other Muslim nations”, he said.

“We are able to challenge the condensed economic power that the evil entities have created for themselves. They create wars, deprivation, and crises”.

The harsh tone of Khamenei’s speech added to widely shared fears across the capitals of the Middle East that the radical Islamist government in Iran was on a collision course with the international community over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

“The Iranian leaders are speaking to just one constituency right now, and that’s the Pasdaran and Bassij”, said Jeff Richardson, a political analyst based in the Gulf state of Qatar, referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and their affiliated Islamist vigilantes. “But when you raise the stakes so high, you’ll find it almost impossible to backtrack”.

Khamenei asserted that Iran was being singled out by the West because of its mission, which is to challenge “the existing world order”.

“Four or five years ago a well-known American Jewish businessman who lives in Europe was able to make several countries bankrupt”, the Supreme Leader said, without naming the businessman.

“These [powers] create violent and brutal states such as Israel and they must be challenged”, he said.

“If need be, we are ready to fight to our last drop of blood, but we know that things will not go that far”, he said.

Khamenei lambasted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), citing it as an example of international organisations that have become “playthings” in the hands of global powers.

Is it too late?