Israeli regime’s first mistake against Iran would also be its last one: Raeisi
President Ebrahim Raeisi says the Israeli regime's first potential act of aggression against Iran would also be its last such mistake since the regime would not be capable of surviving the Islamic Republic's counterstrike.
“The Zionist regime’s threats amount to futile rhetoric, which no one in the world believes in. If the Zionist enemy took the slightest of actions against us, our first [counter]action would equal its (the Israeli regime’s) destruction,” the Iranian president told Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network in an interview on Tuesday.
“The Islamic Republic’s power is not a secret to anyone in the region. The Zionist regime’s first [potential] act of folly [against Iran] would also be its last,” Raeisi reasserted.
“The Zionist regime would not be able to survive [even] the initial moments of Iran’s response,” he noted, saying the regime, itself, knew well that it was incapable of confronting the Islamic Republic.
The chief executive said Iran had reached the stage of self-sufficiency in the military sphere, describing the Islamic Republic as a “talked-about country” in the field of the defense industry.
Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s enemies have stopped short of committing any mistake against the country, not because they do not seek to take such action, but because they do not have the required power to do so, he stated.
Israeli regime vs. resistance
Raeisi likewise discredited the Israeli regime’s threats against the regional resistance front, saying the regime was incapable of meeting even its own “internal security” demands, not to mention taking on the resistance.
“The current circumstances are in favor of the resistance and against the Zionist regime,” he said, adding, “The Zionist regime’s threats are vain and hollow. This regime is today incapable of confronting the youths of the Palestinian resistance and the region.”
Iran, he, meanwhile, affirmed, has not and will not regret supporting the regional resistance front in the face of the occupying regime’s aggression.
Iran-Saudi rapprochement
The president also hailed ongoing rapprochement efforts aimed at restoring relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which agreed to resume their diplomatic relations under China’s auspices back in March.
The countries, Raeisi said, enjoy influential regional positions and their relations stand to benefit the region.
“Our enemies, including the Zionist regime, are [however] enraged by restoration of these relations since they are trying to sow division among us,” stated the official.
The reconciliation process between the two sides took off the ground after Beijing informed Tehran about Riyadh’s inclination towards the detente, Raeisi noted.
Pending trip to Syria
The president pointed to an upcoming visit he was expected to make to Syria at the head of a ranking delegation, saying the trip would be aimed at further enhancement of the countries’ “strategic and important” relations.
He said several regional countries had started seeking reconciliation with Syria after realizing that the Arab country would not suffer defeat in the face of efforts that are aimed at its disintegration.
Raeisi expressed support on the part of the Islamic Republic for Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, asserting that the United States’ forces had to leave Syrian soil “immediately.”
Iran, he added, was prepared to cooperate with Syria in the efforts that were aimed at the country’s reconstruction.
US unilateralism, patronage of terrorism
Raeisi went on to reiterate the Islamic Republic’s opposition to the United States’ unilateralism.
“We believe that the world is not limited to three or four countries, which consider themselves to be rulers of the world.”
Iran, he added, had managed to call the Americans’ bluff of fighting terrorism in order for the world to realize that “it is the Americans, themselves, who manage terrorism.”
Raeisi pointed to the US’s 2020 assassination of Iran’s top anti-terror commander, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, saying the atrocity had, unlike what Washington had hoped for, failed to end his legacy, noting how the commander’s saga had turned into a model for the youths of the resistance across the region.