Iran military official: Obama has surrendered

Iran military official: Obama has surrendered
Quds Forces chief: President's remark acknowledged inability to change regime
Published: 10/02/2013 at 9:04 PM
author-image Reza Kahlili About | Email | Archive
Reza Kahlili, author of the award-winning book "A Time to Betray," served in CIA Directorate of Operations, as a spy in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, counterterrorism expert; currently serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, an advisory board to Congress and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI). He regularly appears in national and international media as an expert on Iran and counterterrorism in the Middle East.
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President Obama’s statement to the United Nations last week that America is not seeking regime change in Iran is not merely a kind remark, but a recognition of U.S. inability to bring change to Iran, the head of Iran’s Quds Forces, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, said.

Joining in that view, an outlet of the Quds cyber forces officers posted an image of a surrendering Obama in military uniform under the title “In a not too distant future.”

The image has Soleimani on top overlooking the defeat of America with a note at the bottom: “One Qasem Soleimani is enough for all the enemies of this country (Iran).”

That claim was underscored this week by Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, a member of Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, who said that while “Iran complies with the Non-Proliferation Treaty rules and regulations and cooperates within that framework, it will never accept the Additional Protocol.”

That protocol allows the IAEA to verify whether countries are complying with nuclear regulations.

“Tehran will not accept any kind of suspension or halt, and all Iranian nuclear facilities will continue their operation,” Hosseini said.

Soleimani, in a Thursday speech to the Congress of Martyrs of the Holy Defense, said Obama was not after regime change only because the United States can’t topple Iran, adding that “America in the last 35 years has committed the most cowardly and worst practices against the … Islamic Republic.”

His remarks were reported by Fars News Agency, an outlet run by the Revolutionary Guards.

Soleimani, called by a former CIA officer the “most powerful operative in the Middle East today,” directs all terrorist activities of the Islamic regime throughout the world and commands much of the behind-the-scenes operations in Syria to protect the Assad regime.

Another Iranian general,Yahya Safavi, former chief commander of the guards and special adviser to the supreme leader, said that the United States has clearly retreated and has chosen a soft approach on Iran.

“It seems that the Americans have reached a conclusion that Iran is a powerful and stable power in the region that maintains a logical and smart method in conflict with its enemies,” Safavi said. “Americans now see that they can’t confront the powerful Iran. Of course Iran will remain aggressive with its demands against America, because the reality is that there is much to demand from the Americans.”

In his U.N. speech, Obama reiterated his desire to continue negotiations with Iran and stated that Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear energy. He cited a fatwa (religious edict) by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, against nuclear weapons and President Hasan Rouhani’s earlier statement to the U.N. that the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon.

But the Islamic regime recently paraded a new line of ballistic missiles that have a range of 1,250 miles and bragged that its power will change the geopolitics of the region and the world. It also announced the production of hundreds of small submarines to add to its ability to threaten the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. And last month it announced the completion of the installation of 18,000 centrifuges at its nuclear enrichment sites.

In emphasizing America’s “surrender,” Gen. Hossein Salami, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said in a speech at Friday prayers in Qom that, “The enemy only understands the logic of power and nothing else. … The jihadist groups (Hezbollah and others), in defeating the Israeli army, planted a seed that has grown to a strong tree with its branches visible throughout the world, and the threats by the oppressive powers no longer frighten the Muslims as the apparent posture of America has collapsed,” Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Friday.

“Today our vision of America’s power is realistic,” Salami said. “The Americans, in a time when their president sneezed a storm [that] would form in another part of the world, today are incapable of a military operation in a country that suffers under three years of war (Syria).

“America’s power has been damaged and you can see its weakness in their own land in front of the Iranian officials. … Such impotence has not been seen from America in front of a country such as ours.”

Obama revealed that although the Iranian president refused to meet with him, he did hold a telephone conversation with Rouhani and that he was hopeful there would be a positive outcome in upcoming negotiations over Iran’s illicit nuclear program.

Although Rouhani in several interviews stated that he has full authority to negotiate and that he was hopeful the nuclear issue could be resolved, a powerful member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee revealed last week that Rouhani has only been authorized by the supreme leader to change tactics but not policy. He said there would be no negotiations with America on the principles of the Islamic regime or anything else.

A recently revealed video of Rouhani before the Iranian June presidential elections shows him boasting about deceiving the West and advancing Iran’s nuclear program during his tenure as the head of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear negotiating team.

According to a source in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit, who cannot be named for security reasons, the regime’s ayatollahs got exactly what they wanted: a commitment from America to accept the regime’s nuclear program and a statement from the president of America not wanting regime change in Iran.

Rouhani’s approach of moderation on the surface has isolated Israel as the regime knew that America would not take military action against Iran under Obama but was not sure about Israel, he said, and that’s now secured.