Let's Be Friends; Self Deception

by Andrew Sullivan

By the way, the Iranians have developed a missile called “Zelzad 1.” Its namesake is a Koranic verse that tells of a conflagration that precipitates Judgment Day. The missile is emblazoned with the slogan: “We will trample America under our feet. Death to America.”

Meanwhile, less than a month ago, MEMRI recorded Yahya Safavi, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, repeatedly referring to the United States as “the enemy” in an interview on Iranian television. “The Americans,” Safavi brayed, “have many weaknesses. In fact, in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they clearly displayed their strengths and weaknesses. We have planned our strategy precisely on the basis of their strengths and weaknesses.” He added that Iran had been studying “the enemy” and determined that there wasn’t “any motivation among the American forces in Iraq. They are very cowardly…. When their commanders encounter a problem, they burst into tears. We did not see such spectacles in the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. I can therefore say that our advantage over the foreign forces is moral and human.”

The bravado echoes what top Iranian officials have been saying for years. “We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization,” claimed Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guard intelligence advisor, in 2004. “[W]e must make use of everything we have at hand to strike at this front by means of our suicide operations or by means of our missiles. There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites, and we know how we are going to attack them.” It was nothing new. Ayatollah Khamenei, who, as we have seen, brags about the potential of Iran’s nuclear program, has also insisted:

We have no need for a nuclear bomb. We have overcome our enemies so far, without the nuclear bomb. The Iranian people have been defeating America for the past 25 years, is it not so? America has been defeated by the Iranian people during the past 25 years. What has it been defeated with? Have we defeated America using a nuclear bomb, or by our determination, will, faith, and awareness? The world of Islam has been mobilized against America for the past 25 years.

The peoples call, “death to America.” Who used to say “death to America?” Who, besides the Islamic Republic and the Iranian people, used to say this? Today, everyone says this.

Yes, everyone. But Iran, unlike “everyone,” has been at war with us for a quarter-century. The Islamic Republic hasn’t the slightest misgiving about it, and it is certain — with all the millennial zeal radical Islam can muster — it will win. It is, the jihadists believe, their destiny. It is what their religion commands.

In contrast, the United States declines to recognize what is plain to see. What, in fact, one must work overtime not to see.

A historical review of our dealings with Iran. Read the whole thing.