Iran News Round Up February 22, 2013

• Senior Advisor for Foreign Affairs to the Supreme Leader Ali Akbar Velayati commented on the Islamic awakening at a conference on the topic in Iran:
  • "Division between Shia and Sunni, Sunni with Sunni, and other resisting groups have always existed because this is the enemy's strategy and there exists examples of this in many countries, such as Afghanistan."
  • "But the West has not been negligent [in the Islamic awakening]. The West has planned well and has penetrated its thoughts in these revolutions. Rather it is the Islamic world that has been negligent regarding this grand occurrence."
  • "When he [the Supreme Leader] was president he spent a lot of time with non-Shia ulama in an effort to forge unity amongst Muslims. After the passing of Imam Khomeini [he] also had a very sensitive situation and played a significant role in helping Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq." 
• Interim Tehran Friday Prayer leader Ayatollah Emami Kashani discussed Bahrain, sacrifice for Islam, and the arrival of the Mahdi [12th Shia Imam]:
  • "People who sacrifice for Islam and ending injustice [should] be certain that they will received God's kindness, grace, and mercy, and this [type of] presence can cause the enemy to become hopeless."
  • "God willing the people of Bahrain will soon be part of God's grace and mercy." 
  • "When nations on earth become hopeless and cries become loud the Mahdi will appear. Then we must say 'come Mahdi, come Mahdi, cries are loud and tears are pouring.'"

Military and Security

• IRGC Commander MG Mohammad Ali Jafari discussed IRGC dominance of global strategic resources:
  • "We have dominance on the world's strategic resources, and as the guardians of this part of the global economy [we] think about the security stability of this region, unlike trans-regional powers."
  • "Our naval power operates in a vast geopolitical landscape and is part of the country's defensive strategy."
  • "With attention to the current and future defensive and offensive power potentials of the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly IRGC's strategic deterrence capability, the Dominant System ought to review and reconsider its path of collision with the Islamic revolution and the Islamic Republic system."
  • "Popularizing security in this region, as a successful IRGC strategy, is continuous with its infranstructual power and gradual security so [it can] make enemies hopeless and significantly increase this region's security factor."
• IRGC Political Affairs Deputy Rasoul Sanaei Rad commented on some officials distancing themselves from the Supreme Leader:
  • "The eminent Supreme Leader has used the word virtue three times and [the word] patience one time in his recent speeches, and on the 14th of Khordad [June 3] of this year he also advised officials to avoid pride, self-interest, and narcissism."
  • "In political psychology [when] an individual who is stricken with political narcissism, he knows himself better than everyone else, does not accept criticism, does not accept others' words, becomes delusional, disconnects himself from the real world and reality, and says 'what I say is paragon of righteousness.'"
  • "Someone who claims [he] is devoted to the eminent Supreme Leader and in the space of narcissism will not write a letter to apologize cannot answer this contradiction."
  • "Some have been stricken by plain deviation and with the slogan of taking the banners of justice and fighting corruption seek to preserve power at any cost and have initiated an electoral and political action." 
• Ministry of Intelligence published a report on an alleged $2 billion CIA project to construct a listening station in Africa in order to intercept global communication.

Photo of the Day

• 14th Seminary Book of the Year event in Qom.