Hard lesson for Zionist regime: Threats against proud Iranian nation always backfire

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

On March 15, 1985, as tens of thousands of people assembled on the lawns of the University of Tehran for the last Friday prayer of the Iranian year, a powerful bomb shook the bustling university campus.

The deadly explosion targeted the Friday congregation, claiming 14 lives and leaving 110 others injured.

Demonstrating remarkable courage and poise in the face of broad daylight terror, Friday prayer leader and then-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, continued his sermon and challenged the enemy from the very podium that was bombed.

People, including those grievously injured, refused to leave the scene and chanted vociferous slogans against terrorists. It wasn't the first time Friday prayers were bombed in the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

This Friday, 39 years down the line, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei again led Friday prayers in the Iranian capital, attended by over a million people.

It came three days after Iranian armed forces carried out devastating retaliatory missile strikes at the occupied Palestinian territories, pounding important Israeli military and intelligence sites.

The carefully calibrated operation, which was in line with Iran's legitimate right to self-defense under the United Nations Charter, triggered panic and hysteria in the power corridors of Tel Aviv. 

Benjamin Netanyahu and his lackeys in Tel Aviv resorted to bellicose rhetoric against the Islamic Republic from their underground bunkers and quite imprudently made fresh terrorist threats.

It was followed by the carefully choreographed psychological warfare in the Israeli and Western media that the Leader of the Islamic Revolution had been secretly transferred to an underground bomb shelter. 

First things first. Iran's military operation was in response to a series of high-profile assassinations by the Zionist regime, from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on August 1 to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his companions, including deputy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Abbas Nilforoushan, in Beirut last Friday.

Iran had vowed to avenge Haniyeh’s death in August, but it exercised strategic restraint for two months after both Western and Arab allies of the Israeli regime scrambled to promise an immediate truce in Gaza. They knew what Iran had in store for the illegitimate offspring of the Western powers. 

The truce didn’t happen and the regime only upped the ante, expanding its genocidal war from Gaza to Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians in southern Lebanon and Beirut, using US-supplied bombs.

On Friday, it breached all red lines after launching massive airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut that led to the martyrdom of Nasrallah, Nilforoushan, and many others. The 80-ton bunker-buster bombs dropped on Dahiyeh were supplied by the US.

After Iran’s crushing response with hundreds of long-range ballistic missiles, which caused significant damage to key Israeli military installations in Tel Aviv irrespective of what Zionist PR lobbies want you to believe, Netanyahu and his lackeys were evidently unnerved and shaken, vowing “response.”

Netanyahu’s predecessor Naftali Bennett went a step further by calling for attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities – peaceful nuclear facilities unlike the regime’s clandestine criminal nuclear program. He didn't bother to think of its possible repercussions for the regime. 

US President Joe Biden, whose government spokespersons initially feigned ignorance about the Israeli attack on Hezbollah leader, spilled the beans by justifying and defending the terrorist crime. The munitions used in the attack bore US stamps so it wasn't surprising for him to defend the indefensible. 

Also, quite scandalously, the attack was ordered by Netanyahu while sitting in the UN headquarters in New York City after holding extensive deliberations with American officials who gave the green light.

Soon after the bombing, Netanyahu flew back to the occupied territories knowing well what was in store for him. He swiftly refurbished his underground bunkers with protective shields in anticipation of a response from Hezbollah and its allies in the Axis of Resistance – from Iraq to Yemen.

Iran’s response, however, wasn’t totally expected by the Israeli regime or its Western patrons. They took Iran's strategic restraint as a sign of submission. Iran had categorically stated that it would hit back at the time and place of its choosing. And the time was now. Enough is enough.

A few hundred ballistic missiles dropped on the occupied territories on Tuesday, evading multiple layers of Israeli and American air defense systems. Fattah, Emad and Khyber-Shikan made mincemeat of much-hyped Iron Dome, David's Sling and Arrow radars. It was an improvised version of the April operation. 

Iran warned that any further provocation by the apartheid regime or its backers in the West would be met with a more severe response. As one senior Iranian official noted, if the Zionist regime knew what Iran had in store for it, it would never have the audacity to threaten Iran. 

You cannot threaten this proud nation and its brave leader. He doesn't run the country from a clandestine command center. He fought from the frontlines, survived numerous assassination bids, suffered torture in Savak prisons and has been fighting Western powers for the past 46 years. 

So when the corporate Western media reported that Iran's leader had been shifted to an unknown underground base, he came out and led Friday prayers in the heart of Tehran. Unlike before, he stayed back to offer both afternoon prayers and then engaged in conversations with officials present there,

It was a fitting answer to those who issued hollow threats against the Iranian nation. 

His speeches are always thought-provoking, but yesterday was a special occasion. It was a remembrance event for Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the flagbearer of anti-Zionist resistance in the region who shared a special bond with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.

“His body may have left us, but his character, his path, his voice remains and will continue to exist,” Leader said about Nasrallah, describing him as a “brother, dear one and source of pride.”

He said the unremitting crimes against people in Gaza and Lebanon will ultimately lead the "bloodthirsty Zionist wolf" to its annihilation, and that every blow to the Zionist regime is a service to all of humanity.

Iran's Leader minces no words and there he said it - the days of this child-murdering regime are numbered. The life support provided to it by the US will also be taken away.

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