IRAN: Claiming wins in regional war, Iranians gloat
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No need to dig deep to find signs of Iranian gloating over America’s struggles in the Middle East.
This week Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran’s top religious and military authority, voiced confidence that Iran is winning a regional conflict against the United States and its allies.
During a visit to the city of Kazeroun in southern Iran, Khamenei voiced an opinion shared by many Iranian officials.
He called on all walks of Iranian society to unify in order to preserve ‘national interests and create a role-model Islamic society for the world.’
Good times are at hand for Iran, he said:
I do not share the cynical views expressed about the current situations in the Islamic Republic of Iran. One of the divinely arranged situations for us, at this juncture in history, is that the U.S. has failed in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and elsewhere in the world.
The statement evokes similar comments expressed by Iranian officials such as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the chairman of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council and Assembly of Experts, who during one Friday prayer sermon, thanked God that ‘the U.S. was stuck in the quagmire in Iraq.’
Analysts say Iranian officials view U.S. struggles in the Middle East as windfall for the Islamic Republic, which has reaped a bountiful harvest of petroleum money thanks to political tensions and rising consumption in Asia.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran
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