Trump’s 1st win gutted Iran’s moderates – will 2nd win push a military man into office?

By: Habib A. Abdolhossein for the Saker Blog

Habib is the editor-in-chief at PressTV, Iran’s English-language media organisation. He is an Iranian media expert and holds an M.A. in Media management from the University of Tehran.

With less than two days to the US election many Iranians are eagerly following the news, as they expect the outcome to impact their own futures.

The ultimate fate of the fragile 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and the future of ties between Tehran and Washington truly hinge on the outcome of the November 3 vote.

US President Donald Trump left the nuclear agreement in tatters by abandoning it in May 2018. He imposed the “strongest sanctions ever” against Iran as part his “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at forcing Iran to make compromises on crucial issues, including its nuclear activities and its highly-touted missile program.

The feeling in Tehran is that Tump’s re-election would mean the continuation of the “maximum pressure” campaign. In fact, the incumbent says if he wins the vote Iran will be forced to seek a deal “within the first month” of his second term. But as his hands are still wet with the blood of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, he is not the desirable option for Iran to resume talks with.

Joe Biden’s victory, on the other hand, is expected to genuinely shift US policy on Iran. In an opinion article published by CNN, Biden said if elected president he would, “offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy”.

Biden’s presidency could be a game-changer for Iran’s reformists and moderate politicians who are vying for a political comeback by championing enhanced relations with the West.

“If Biden becomes U.S. president and rejoins the JCPOA, Iran will get a major achievement… But if Trump is re-elected, he will continue his maximum pressure against Iran and will pose new challenges for the Iranian economy,” confirms Dr. Ahmad Naghibzadeh, Tehran University professor and a member of Executives of Construction Party, a reformist party in Iran.

Reformists, who are already under fire for their support for President Hassan Rouhani’s administration, thus consider pursuing diplomacy with Biden as a more feasible way to promote their agenda.

“The new government should take advantage of the opportunities made after the U.S. elections to normalize ties with the world and tackle the sanctions…. Reformists view power as a tool for entering into negotiations with the world,” says Seyed Hossein Marashi, spokesman of the pro-reform Kargozaran Sazandegi Party.

However, the obvious reality is that such an attitude barely strikes a chord with the general public in Iran – geopolitical concerns have been put on the back burner after years of being a regularly-discussed topic. A majority of Iranians are instead obsessed with economy, which is cracking under sanctions and the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak.

Vote of no-confidence for Reformists

Back in 2013, Rouhani swept to a landslide, first-round victory as a centrist with a campaign of “prudence and hope”. Rouhani promised to rescue the economy by ending Iran’s international isolation. Seven years on, with the economy reeling from re-imposed US sanctions, those hopes have clearly been dashed. Many of his supporters are disappointed and even outraged with Rouhani’s “empty” promises of change.

Rouhani’s victories in the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections actually had less to do with his own popularity than with a tacit alliance with the reformists. Support from key reformist figures, including ex-President Mohammad Khatami, who had pinned hopes onto Rouhani’s pro-reform pledges, played a key role.

Many voters see too big a gap between Rouhani’s campaign rhetoric and the reality of his governance. Furthermore, his performance has also inflicted a heavy toll on the popularity of moderates who threw their weight behind him.

“Rouhani was not a reformist but the reformists put their social capital on sale by supporting him…” says former MP Nasser Qavami, who believes reformists have already lost the game by supporting a non-reformist.

Reformists and other moderates now have almost no selling point to entice even their own disillusioned supporters to vote. They can no longer hope to defeat the conservatives who have already conquered parliament.

The 2020 parliamentary elections were a litmus test for moderates: With the lowest turnout since the 1979 Islamic Revolution (admittedly affected by the pandemic), reformists didn’t just lose the vote but were annihilated: they dropped from a plurality of 121 seats to just 20 seats.

Trump or Biden? Yes, it does it make a difference for Iran

Whether the incumbent Donald Trump is re-elected or his Democratic rival Joe Biden wins the White House cannot help but decisively impact Iran’s immediate foreign policy strategy because, from the point of view of moderates, the two candidates have genuinely different approaches to Iran. This runs counter to the conservatives’ view, which is that an anti-Iran policy is the only policy possible from Washington no matter who is elected.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a key political analyst and a professor at Tehran University, believes Iran will be in a better position if Trump wins the U.S. election.

“An internationally isolated US under Trump will have little chance of gaining any serious accomplishment against Iran. But if Biden wins, he will act better in forging consensus against Iran,” Marandi asserts.

Despite his bellicose rhetoric, Trump has indicated that he doesn’t want a war with Iran, and he has employed military intervention far less than his recent predecessors. However, there is no guarantee he will follow this same strategy in his second term, worrying many.

“Since he doesn’t need voters’ support in his second term, the possibility of military confrontation with Iran increases,” suggests Afshar Soleimani, an Iranian political analyst.

With that in mind, a Trump victory may cause Iran to ultimately lean towards a more aggressive approach: ditching the landmark nuclear deal and boosting the controversial missile program. Much to the chagrin of the US, Iran is now allowed to export arms after a 13-year old ban was just lifted under the JCPOA. Houthis in Yemen and Lebanon’s Hezbollah top the list of allies whom Iran may supply with weapons.

The best option to enforce this type of a change to foreign policy could be a president who has served in the military.

Military-turned president in the making?

This should be viewed as a major strategic shift as the Islamic Republic has always had a civilian president.

“This position should be run by a strategic individual who has a better military and security expertise to take on a pivotal role in the strategic management of the country,” says Hossein Allahkaram, a conservative pundit and former IRGC officer.

There are mounting speculations that former defense minister and IRGC commander General Hossein Dehqan may run for president in the 2021 election. A senior military advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Dehqan has already served in the defense ministry in the Khatami and Rouhani administrations. He also headed the key Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs during Ahmadinejad’s first term.

But the vital question is whether Iranian society is ready to accept a military commander as president?

“This depends on the national strategy. A military president is not likely to win a landslide victory,” says reformist analyst Mohammad Sadeq Javadi Hessari. “This could be an option by conservatives to take advantage when low voter turnout is expected,” he crucially emphasizes.

Iranians have already indicated that they have great reverence for their military commanders – millions turned out in nationwide funerals and commemorations after Soleimani was killed.

For many Iranians Trump’s re-election means more tensions with the US are certain. With low voter turnout expected, a soldier-turned president could be an option unless Washington’s “maximum pressure” stops before Iran’s June 18th presidential vote.

Such a choice could even work with Biden as president: It could pressure the White House to not set impossible preconditions for returning to the JCPOA, or not attempt to keep the sanctions in place as leverage.

What’s certain is that the new US president will have little chance to negotiate a new deal with outgoing Iranian president Rouhani, whose term ends in almost eight months.

Iranians will certainly be more demanding should they enter any talks with US again. They have lost their top general Soleimani and incurred serious damages under Trump-era sanctions. They expect US compensation to be offered just to resume talks.

Opening the window of diplomacy seems to be more conceivable with Biden than Trump. The victor would be wise to remember that resistance is expected to remain an option for Iran – as usual – regardless of who is finally elected in the United States.

Final Conflict on November 02, 2020 · at 7:16 am EST/EDT

I agree that from a rational perspective, war against Iran is out of the question and makes no sense. This is also true of Russia, that no one in their right mind in the West would dare strike against Russia and force it into all-out war. It would be absolutely insane.

However, this is assuming that the Zionists are rational players playing with a full deck. They are not and have not ever since Benjamin Netanyahu began his takeover of Likud during the 1990s, when he started proclaiming every couple years that Iran was “months away” from producing a nuclear warhead. The situation of the Palestinians was already horrible enough as it was before the 1990s, but from the moment Netanyahu became a force in Israel, their situation has become worse than anything humanly imaginable, as in sheer hell on earth on a daily basis. Netanyahu and his gang are so thoroughly psychopathic that they considered Ariel Sharon to have been too soft on the Palestinian question. They goaded him into visiting the Temple Mount a year before the 9/11 attacks in order to prove his worth, which unsurprisingly triggered the Second Intifada. Sharon already had serious health issues before this, but in the years after this action his health degenerated severely.

They are genuinely crazy and the Netanyahu gang are the most insane of all, who have transformed Israel into the most Satanic society in history. They have desecrated and destroyed Jerusalem and turned it into a hellish city of sin and sexual depravity, while Tel Aviv is acknowledged as the most sexually deviant city in the world, annually hosting one of the world’s largest Gay Pride parades. They have desecrated the Holy Land in a way that can only be described as rape. This is the model of Sodom and Gomorrah they want to impose on every other nation on earth.

This is an Adversary that one cannot ever turn their back on or trust that they would never be so insane as to orchestrate a direct attack against or invasion of Iran via the U.S. Sepah does everything they do, including numerous war games, military exercises, and invasion preparedness actions throughout the year, every year, for this reason. Sepah is a rational and pragmatic player. The Adversary (includes both the Great Satan, which is the U.S. and Lesser Satan, which is Israel) is the diametric opposite.

Unlike the pre-9/11 era, when the Western Zionist world order was far more stable, Israel and its Western allies have been becoming increasingly unstable and desperate, with one recession after another, out-of-control unemployment, homelessness, poverty. Take Israel, for example. It is a nightmare society, even for Israeli Jews. There are so many Jewish slums and ethnic ghettos that they have to be seen to be believed, because the mass media censor their existence. But poverty and unemployment among Jews is so bad in Israel that they suffer consistently high levels of outmigration, especially to NYC and L.A. which have seen an explosion in the rise of Israeli immigrants. Every other real estate broker and buyer in NYC is an Israeli and in L.A. entire parts of the San Fernando Valley have been overtaken by working class Israelis. This is happening in other American cities but the main epicenters are NYC and L.A.

Israelis themselves have very little faith in their leaders but most have accepted a kind of fatalism that compells them to continue the self-destructive course mandated by Netanyahu and Likud. So the working class and low income sectors of Israel themselves know their leaders are a bunch of warmongering psychopaths.

Every conflict they have initiated since Afghanistan and Iraq, always using the U.S. to lead the forward momentum, has been an unmitigated disaster. And yet they persisted, betraying Gaddafi and destroying Libya, betraying Assad and organizing a fake “civil war” against him, using Saudi to invade and destroy Yemen, among so many other proxy wars they have chosen to trigger. The latest proxy war in this series is between Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan.

As you are well aware, everything that is being done is to encircle Iran and build a kind of Zionist Curtain surrounding Iran from all borders. If Artsakh were to be destroyed and ROA victorious against Armenia, which would (barring an overthrow of the color revolution regime) likely result in Armenia officially turning against Russia, blaming them for all their sins and failures, and fully embracing global Zionism and dreaming of joining the billionaire mafia class of international oligarchy.

Encircling Iran and Russia on all fronts is the key strategy. What this is all is, essentially, is preparation for a future world war. So far their nonstop provocations and belligerent rhetoric combined with allegedly “crippling” sanctions have failed, because Iran, under Sepah’s leadership, has always been able to bypass the “crippling’ sanctions so that in reality, the sanctions cripple nothing and achieve nothing. Business as usual. Iranian ingenuity in this regard cannot be denied and it is the only state in the world capable of withstanding this level of economic and political terrorism and yet continue to thrive in technological and industrial innovation and manufacturing. Iran’s indigenous military-industrial complex is so vast and well developed that it is fast approaching a time when it will no longer need to purchase any military resources abroad.

It is not a coincidence that all that has been happening this year, beginning with the murder of Gen. Soleimani, all coincide with the COVID outbreak and resulting lockdowns worldwide, across all societies (except Sweden and Belarus, which didn’t go along with any of this) all directed by the Zionist Anthony Fauci in collusion with the WHO. Everything is connected.

If we want to get very conspiratorial, there is plenty out there to suggest Israel used MKO/MEK agents during the military games in Wuhan to export COVID to Iran, France, Italy, and Spain — all countries where the Rajavi cult has a significant presence and where in France, Italy and Spain they have funded far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim political parties using Saudi money personally donated by MbS. And the most virulent strains were released in Iran and Northern Italy, the Lombardy region in particular. And everything royally hit the fan from there on out.

Putting such conspiracy theory aside, what it all comes down to is that the Adversary represents the Antichrist and is preparing the way for this abomination, which is hellbent on world domination at any cost. So, the official position of both Sepah and Artesh is that Iran must always remain in a state of ever-readiness, always prepared to confront any attack or potential invasion.

That was the lesson the early revolutionary government learned the hard way when Saddam launched a surprise invasion in the middle of the night, literally forcing Khorramshahr awake in an instant with Baathist shock troops everywhere all at once. No one in Iran was ready and because of a few corrupt psychopath zealots like Khalkhali (who was rabidly anti-Persian) who had military officials and Air Force officers executed.

Because of Sepah, that level of unpreparedness and treachery by anti-nationalist clerics and politicians will never happen again. It’s funny how outsiders will always rant on and on about the “mullahs” and “ayatollahs” running the “theocracy,” when in reality, they have very little power and influence on matters of foreign policy and military strategy, which is squarely in the hands of Sepah. Even in the domestic arena, Sepah has increasingly consolidated it into its sphere of influence and control to ensure national security, which fell apart at various times under Rafsanjani and Khatami, and now again under Rouhani.

With the murder of Soleimani, it is clear that that the Adversary is willing to cross the most dangerous red line there is, risking all-out war. The Iranian retaliation convinced the more pragmatic minds at the Pentagon that their fears were confirmed, that direct warfare against Iran was simply not feasible and likely impossible to win in the face of Iranian-led regional assymetric tactics.

And that’s where the continued bullying of “maximum pressure” comes in, as a method of attempting to weaken Iran and the morale of Iranian society to the point where a color revolution ensues, potentially sparking civil conflict, thus giving the Adversary justification to mount a “humanitarian invasion of liberation.”

This is why I mention the Iranian logic behind the question, “Which Zionist stooge in the White House will be most likely to spark war sooner, rather than later?” Someone like John McCain, for instance, was considered too dangerous in US intelligence circles because he was insane and senile enough to potentially cross the red line and mount a “humanitarian invasion of liberation.” He was truly nuts.

Thing is, we’re normal righteous humans. We, like Sepah, can never really be sure that they won’t be crazy enough to go to war because such insanity will quickly escalate toward World War III. The Zionists are simply too inhuman, their thinking not of this world but of their subjective Talmudic reality.

If you’ve never done so, and if you have a lot of time, I encourage you to read the Talmud and Kabbalah, i.e. esoteric Zionism, which forms the basis for the outwardly secular political Zionism. There is much there that will explain their insanity and the methods of their madness and their addiction to perpetual war and their necessity to shed the blood of innocents.

70 Comments

Joe on November 01, 2020 · at 1:57 pm EST/EDT

I am really puzzled by this article. Both Trump and Biden are so pro Israel that they both put Israel first and the USA second. For anyone in Iran to think one makes a difference over the other, as far as Iran is concerned, really casts doubt on their ability to analyze the situation.
- B.F. on November 01, 2020 · at 8:09 pm EST/EDT
  
  Joe
  “Biden’s presidency could be a game-changer for Iran’s reformists and moderate politicians”. After this statement I stopped reading. The only thing Iran can expect from Biden is possible war and demands that little Guaido’s be placed in power, who would open Iran to Western plundering.
- Final Conflict on November 01, 2020 · at 8:18 pm EST/EDT
  
  The difference from the Iranian perspective is in the question, “Who will initiate a war against Iran sooner?”
  
  To argue anything else is pointless, because as everyone knows, both the Republicans and Democrats are 100% Zionist in orientation and regardless of who is in “power,” the president is nothing but a meatpuppet of Zionist handlers in Tel Aviv.
  
  Iranian neoliberals (the pro-EU/NATO crowd) believe that Biden/Harris will not start a war against Iran or force Iran into any kind of all-out war and that they will work to restore JCPOA, even though Kamala is one of the most hardcore Zionists in Washington, is married to a hardcore Zionist, and has spent much time in Israel glorifying Zionism.
  
  Iranian nationalists (everyone else) believe that all U.S. politicians are hopelessly corrupt and degenerate, so it is better to have an incompetent idiot like Trump in the presidency because the JCPOA is a horrible neoliberal nightmare for Iranian sovereignty and dignity and thus should be done away with. From this perspective, Trump did a huge favor for Iranian nationalism in tearing up the JCPOA.
  
  Also, Trump being an incompetent idiot and surrounding himself with other incompetents and mental defectives means that the Western world is less likely to be unified under an American banner, and that the EU will operate independently of the U.S. thus keeping global Zionism divided and in conflict with itself.
  
  You have to understand that unlike Zionists, Iranians are not a warmongering people. Zionists are addicted to constant perpetual bloodshed and are willing to sacrifice countless lives to feed this sick addiction. For Iran, war is purely defensive in nature, hence the concept of “Sacred Defense.”
  
  So the best person in the White House, from an Iranian perspective, is the Zionist stooge who will start all-out war against Iran later, rather than sooner. Iran already has been subject to over forty years of economic terrorism and nonstop proxy wars by the U.S. and its Zionist-Wahhabi allies.
  - B.F. on November 01, 2020 · at 8:51 pm EST/EDT
    
    Final Conflict
    “Iranian neoliberals (the pro-EU/NATO crowd) believe that Biden/Harris will not start a war against Iran …”. We are talking here about remnants of the parasitic middle class created by the Shah of Iran, who needed parasites to prop up his corrupt regime. These people have no real support in Iran, just like liberals in Russia do not have any real support in Russian society.
    - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 12:13 am EST/EDT
      
      I would say that Iranian neoliberals are the new Iranian middle class that grew up watching satellite TV propaganda.
      
      They have been brainwashed into believing that Iran has committed some serious offense, and is deservedly being punished for it.
      
      They believe that the revolution was bad for Iran, and they speak with nostalgia of the Shah’s era as some kind of garden of eden of Iranian history, even though for the most part they weren’t even born yet when the Shah left.
      
      I think I can sum up their ideology in a few simple points:
      
      1. Iran bad, West good
      2. Islam bad, secular Western culture good
      3. Ayatollahs bad, Shah good
      4. Resistance bad, bending the knee good
      5. Soleimani bad, Trump good
      
      The neo-liberal mentality in Iran is more prevalent than some believe. And it is a modern post-revolution phenomena that was brought about through the singular means of the Zionist media. Its purpose, obviously, is to create division and disunity in Iran.
      
      Lucky for Iran, the neoliberals are a bunch of wimps and cowards, they have no backbone at all, and they believe in nothing except secular Western values, which is how the Zionists like their brainwashed slaves, which is their downfall.
      
      So, it doesn’t matter how many Iranians are in the liberal camp, in my opinion, they are just sheep, and a single shepherd can keep all of them in line.
  - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 4:37 am EST/EDT
    
    Final Conflict,
    
    There is not going to be a war with Iran.
    
    When the US invaded and subdued Afghanistan and Iraq, and stationed hundreds of thousands of troops there, many here in Iran were gearing up for the inevitable battles to come. And yet it never came.
    
    That was the USA’s one and only chance to go to war against Iran, and they flubbed it.
    
    A US war against Iran will need hundreds of thousands of troops, and it will need Iraq and Afghanistan, which are the best options as far as staging grounds are concerned, which is why they were originally chosen.
    
    Today the US cannot keep more than a tenuous foothold in the region at best. If they bring a hundred thousand troops to Iraq again, they will perforce have to bring a hundred thousand body bags as well.
    
    Afghanistan has so far proved too wild to tame and conquer, in my opinion. But US troops stationed in Afghanistan with the intent of going to war against Iran will be the same scenario as Iraq; ie. just more targets for Iran to hit.
    
    In any case, the invasion of Iran will be such a long and drawn-out affair that nobody in their right mind wants such a thing, especially Israel, so close to Iran.
    
    The destruction of Israel is the only red line for global Zionism, which will be a certainty if Iran is invaded. But it is not just invasion which is off the table. If one hair is touched on Iran’s head, Israel will be wiped off the map like Assyria was in 614-612BC. Assyria was the greatest military power the world had ever seen. Israel is just a dumb ogre in comparison.
    
    And as such we see that no overt attempt has been made against Iranian soil. No such attempt will come, because other than Israel’s fate, Iran also holds the fate of the entire western economy, and world economy, in its hands. What will happen to the industries of the world and to the world economy if Iran ends all Arab oil production, which we can do with the press of a button, I imagine.
    
    No. As I have said before, there is no player in the world with the nerve to attack Iran, because Iran can end the world as we know it. All they can do is make the price of chicken go up with the help of their fifth column idiots here, and brainwash more people with their inane TV programs and social media.
    
    How far the strong have fallen..
    
    China is the last hope of global Zionism to subdue Iran, with the new and improved JCPOA which they are offering through Beijing. The terms are: you can keep your missiles and your nuclear work, just let us come and undermine your industries and your domestic production capabilities and make you dependent on us for everything, like every country in the world already is.
    
    Global Zionism II: Made in China
    - Alabama on November 02, 2020 · at 7:13 am EST/EDT
      
      There is already an economic war, I think the author believes that a biden win would loosen the turnakit around the Iranian economy.
    - Final Conflict on November 02, 2020 · at 7:16 am EST/EDT
      
      I agree that from a rational perspective, war against Iran is out of the question and makes no sense. This is also true of Russia, that no one in their right mind in the West would dare strike against Russia and force it into all-out war. It would be absolutely insane.
      
      However, this is assuming that the Zionists are rational players playing with a full deck. They are not and have not ever since Benjamin Netanyahu began his takeover of Likud during the 1990s, when he started proclaiming every couple years that Iran was “months away” from producing a nuclear warhead. The situation of the Palestinians was already horrible enough as it was before the 1990s, but from the moment Netanyahu became a force in Israel, their situation has become worse than anything humanly imaginable, as in sheer hell on earth on a daily basis. Netanyahu and his gang are so thoroughly psychopathic that they considered Ariel Sharon to have been too soft on the Palestinian question. They goaded him into visiting the Temple Mount a year before the 9/11 attacks in order to prove his worth, which unsurprisingly triggered the Second Intifada. Sharon already had serious health issues before this, but in the years after this action his health degenerated severely.
      
      They are genuinely crazy and the Netanyahu gang are the most insane of all, who have transformed Israel into the most Satanic society in history. They have desecrated and destroyed Jerusalem and turned it into a hellish city of sin and sexual depravity, while Tel Aviv is acknowledged as the most sexually deviant city in the world, annually hosting one of the world’s largest Gay Pride parades. They have desecrated the Holy Land in a way that can only be described as rape. This is the model of Sodom and Gomorrah they want to impose on every other nation on earth.
      
      This is an Adversary that one cannot ever turn their back on or trust that they would never be so insane as to orchestrate a direct attack against or invasion of Iran via the U.S. Sepah does everything they do, including numerous war games, military exercises, and invasion preparedness actions throughout the year, every year, for this reason. Sepah is a rational and pragmatic player. The Adversary (includes both the Great Satan, which is the U.S. and Lesser Satan, which is Israel) is the diametric opposite.
      
      Unlike the pre-9/11 era, when the Western Zionist world order was far more stable, Israel and its Western allies have been becoming increasingly unstable and desperate, with one recession after another, out-of-control unemployment, homelessness, poverty. Take Israel, for example. It is a nightmare society, even for Israeli Jews. There are so many Jewish slums and ethnic ghettos that they have to be seen to be believed, because the mass media censor their existence. But poverty and unemployment among Jews is so bad in Israel that they suffer consistently high levels of outmigration, especially to NYC and L.A. which have seen an explosion in the rise of Israeli immigrants. Every other real estate broker and buyer in NYC is an Israeli and in L.A. entire parts of the San Fernando Valley have been overtaken by working class Israelis. This is happening in other American cities but the main epicenters are NYC and L.A.
      
      Israelis themselves have very little faith in their leaders but most have accepted a kind of fatalism that compells them to continue the self-destructive course mandated by Netanyahu and Likud. So the working class and low income sectors of Israel themselves know their leaders are a bunch of warmongering psychopaths.
      
      Every conflict they have initiated since Afghanistan and Iraq, always using the U.S. to lead the forward momentum, has been an unmitigated disaster. And yet they persisted, betraying Gaddafi and destroying Libya, betraying Assad and organizing a fake “civil war” against him, using Saudi to invade and destroy Yemen, among so many other proxy wars they have chosen to trigger. The latest proxy war in this series is between Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan.
      
      As you are well aware, everything that is being done is to encircle Iran and build a kind of Zionist Curtain surrounding Iran from all borders. If Artsakh were to be destroyed and ROA victorious against Armenia, which would (barring an overthrow of the color revolution regime) likely result in Armenia officially turning against Russia, blaming them for all their sins and failures, and fully embracing global Zionism and dreaming of joining the billionaire mafia class of international oligarchy.
      
      Encircling Iran and Russia on all fronts is the key strategy. What this is all is, essentially, is preparation for a future world war. So far their nonstop provocations and belligerent rhetoric combined with allegedly “crippling” sanctions have failed, because Iran, under Sepah’s leadership, has always been able to bypass the “crippling’ sanctions so that in reality, the sanctions cripple nothing and achieve nothing. Business as usual. Iranian ingenuity in this regard cannot be denied and it is the only state in the world capable of withstanding this level of economic and political terrorism and yet continue to thrive in technological and industrial innovation and manufacturing. Iran’s indigenous military-industrial complex is so vast and well developed that it is fast approaching a time when it will no longer need to purchase any military resources abroad.
      
      It is not a coincidence that all that has been happening this year, beginning with the murder of Gen. Soleimani, all coincide with the COVID outbreak and resulting lockdowns worldwide, across all societies (except Sweden and Belarus, which didn’t go along with any of this) all directed by the Zionist Anthony Fauci in collusion with the WHO. Everything is connected.
      
      If we want to get very conspiratorial, there is plenty out there to suggest Israel used MKO/MEK agents during the military games in Wuhan to export COVID to Iran, France, Italy, and Spain — all countries where the Rajavi cult has a significant presence and where in France, Italy and Spain they have funded far-right anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim political parties using Saudi money personally donated by MbS. And the most virulent strains were released in Iran and Northern Italy, the Lombardy region in particular. And everything royally hit the fan from there on out.
      
      Putting such conspiracy theory aside, what it all comes down to is that the Adversary represents the Antichrist and is preparing the way for this abomination, which is hellbent on world domination at any cost. So, the official position of both Sepah and Artesh is that Iran must always remain in a state of ever-readiness, always prepared to confront any attack or potential invasion.
      
      That was the lesson the early revolutionary government learned the hard way when Saddam launched a surprise invasion in the middle of the night, literally forcing Khorramshahr awake in an instant with Baathist shock troops everywhere all at once. No one in Iran was ready and because of a few corrupt psychopath zealots like Khalkhali (who was rabidly anti-Persian) who had military officials and Air Force officers executed.
      
      Because of Sepah, that level of unpreparedness and treachery by anti-nationalist clerics and politicians will never happen again. It’s funny how outsiders will always rant on and on about the “mullahs” and “ayatollahs” running the “theocracy,” when in reality, they have very little power and influence on matters of foreign policy and military strategy, which is squarely in the hands of Sepah. Even in the domestic arena, Sepah has increasingly consolidated it into its sphere of influence and control to ensure national security, which fell apart at various times under Rafsanjani and Khatami, and now again under Rouhani.
      
      With the murder of Soleimani, it is clear that that the Adversary is willing to cross the most dangerous red line there is, risking all-out war. The Iranian retaliation convinced the more pragmatic minds at the Pentagon that their fears were confirmed, that direct warfare against Iran was simply not feasible and likely impossible to win in the face of Iranian-led regional assymetric tactics.
      
      And that’s where the continued bullying of “maximum pressure” comes in, as a method of attempting to weaken Iran and the morale of Iranian society to the point where a color revolution ensues, potentially sparking civil conflict, thus giving the Adversary justification to mount a “humanitarian invasion of liberation.”
      
      This is why I mention the Iranian logic behind the question, “Which Zionist stooge in the White House will be most likely to spark war sooner, rather than later?” Someone like John McCain, for instance, was considered too dangerous in US intelligence circles because he was insane and senile enough to potentially cross the red line and mount a “humanitarian invasion of liberation.” He was truly nuts.
      
      Thing is, we’re normal righteous humans. We, like Sepah, can never really be sure that they won’t be crazy enough to go to war because such insanity will quickly escalate toward World War III. The Zionists are simply too inhuman, their thinking not of this world but of their subjective Talmudic reality.
      
      If you’ve never done so, and if you have a lot of time, I encourage you to read the Talmud and Kabbalah, i.e. esoteric Zionism, which forms the basis for the outwardly secular political Zionism. There is much there that will explain their insanity and the methods of their madness and their addiction to perpetual war and their necessity to shed the blood of innocents.
      - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 8:17 am EST/EDT
        
        Thank you for this excellent comment, mate. I am humbled.
        
        I know of the Kabbalah and Talmud only in cursory fashion. I would rather not study the dark mind of the enemy too closely, but I might just do it now that you suggest it, Final Conflict.
        
        Cheers
      - GOD's WORD on November 03, 2020 · at 3:13 am EST/EDT
        
        @ Final Conflict
        
        Your a God’s messanger always perfection and truth.
        
        @jamshyd
        
        They isreal had US ready to attack Iran but A lone wolf advisor to trump changed his mind and a huge airforce us/Nato attack was made Stand-down. Now Isreal wants to start the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon to blame Iran so best be prepared and God bless you and yours. It will spread right up the baltics to the northern hemisphere, no country or human on this small planet will escape the horrors to come in this final conflict!
        
        Jamshyd on November 04, 2020 · at 6:48 am EST/EDT
        
        “no country or human on this small planet will escape the horrors to come in this final conflict!”
        
        I’m afraid you’re right, mate.
        
        I did not mean to say that there will never be a war against Iran. I should have said that a war with Iran will not be an isolated conflict like the US invasion of Iraq. A war with Iran will be in the context of a world war.
        
        But I find it hard to understand the purpose of establishing the Zionist pseudo-state, only for it to be annihilated. Surely, they could not have forseen the Islamic Revolution of Iran, and the subsequent formation of the resistance.
        
        These people are materialists. They do not aspire to a hereafter. This world is all they’ve got. And what they wanted was to rule the world from Tel Aviv.
        
        The next world war will not be like the last; it will turn the planet into a desolate nuclear wasteland. How do a bunch of materialist-hedonists see themselves benefitting from that?
    - djole on November 02, 2020 · at 7:49 am EST/EDT
      
      I think you’re wrong here Jamshyd. This is not about the Jews either. This is about a provocation of the conflict that is in the globalistic system interest, delete of debt collection of the colonial western states and the creation of a new payment system for a certain period. The West cannot reset world without a great war. Israel will be the bait for that war. There are enough fanatics in power structures who will push America into war to back Israel even against their will if necessary. It doesn’t matter to them that millions of Iranians or Israelis will die there.
    - Bourgeois Backpacker on November 02, 2020 · at 10:27 am EST/EDT
      
      “they may as well bring one-hundred thousand body bags with them” LOL good one!
      As far as I’m concerned, Final Conflict above is right: it doesn’t matter a jot who makes it as puppet-in-chief in Washington, he will bend to every I$raeli demand, just like the dozens of similar puppets-in-chief before him, as well as every single member of the Congress. Lucky Iranians, it’s your own government that gets to issue your currency – any state that cannot make that claim (the US, the Eurozone, Japan, Russia, nearly every Third-World country) basically has no sovereignty and it’s fate lies in the hands of a cartel of the World’s mega-banks. I’m sure you’re familiar with the famous line “Give me the power to issue a country’s currency and I do not care what laws it passes”..
      BTW I spent two week in Iran back in 2002, easily one of my top five holidays ever : )
Per/Norway on November 01, 2020 · at 2:21 pm EST/EDT

Like Joe i am puzzled by this authors statement, “the two candidates have genuinely different approaches to Iran.”
Seriously? The US change their official puppet every 4 years, the policies never change.(not much if at all to be precise)
I have no other bones to pick bc i do not know enough about Iranian internal politics to form a serious opinion.
I also hope the writer can write a article about Iranian politics, groups, parties etc to fill some knowledge holes for us curious humans born in the vassal statelets under imperial azog ocupation👍

Per
Norway
- Antoine on November 02, 2020 · at 1:21 am EST/EDT
  
  I love this article – it’s a reporting-type of article of what is actually being discussed in Iran right now at top levels and in a broad range of political groups. I can’t find that too many places.
  
  People seem to be upset that the author obviously bent over backward to remain neutral in this report. They wanted some type of editorial screed which ended with “Death to America!” This site is like that in some ways, but it’s the information I think we all come here for.
  
  I don’t need to be told how to think on Iran or what Iranians “must” think, unlike many other commenters here. I wanted trusted news about WHAT Iran is thinking about now, and that’s what this is. Like Per, I like this article because there are so many knowledge gaps about Iran to fill. It’s terrible.
  
  More basic news about Iran is what’s needed. The rude commenters are all basement Che Guevaras.
Vladimir on November 01, 2020 · at 2:32 pm EST/EDT

The answer is yes. President Trump will win re-election and a Military man will lead Iran’s government as a consequence.
- Kamran on November 02, 2020 · at 1:41 am EST/EDT
  
  People don’t seem to get this article: many Iranians do not want a military man in office. It’s a major change for Iranians.
  
  I agree – Principlists may run them because Trump’s assassination of Soleimani has made the military such effective martyrs and representatives of US aggression. Still, many here in Iran want a separation of military and state.
  
  The West is pushing us to this, but Iran is not a military-minded people. Trump is terrible for Iran – get him out, as far as we are concerned.
  - Vladimir on November 02, 2020 · at 2:50 pm EST/EDT
    
    Expect to be pushed then in a certain direction. President Trump will win re-election, and your country will then make moves in turn reflecting that reality. There’s a lot of wishful thinking out there, but reality should be honestly reflected.
J W Rebel on November 01, 2020 · at 2:47 pm EST/EDT

Apparently Iranians put a lot of faith in American democracy.

The President has little influence. Trump wanted to get out of the Middle East and Afghanistan. How did that turn out?
Who the president is matters little. President Harris will turn everything over to the “professional” foreign policy blob, full of warmongers, empire apparatchiks, neo-cons, and rabid Israel supporters. They will still be in Afghanistan, and more likely than not renew the war on Syria and the so-called Shia crescent. Only they will couch it in humanitarian rhetoric.
Trump was the most reticent of the last 5 presidents in terms of foreign wars.

How people in Iran could think a reconstituted Hillary-o-cratic foreign policy would benefit them can only be explained by too much faith in American democracy and the idea that the clown heading the parade in DC matters.
- Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 12:28 am EST/EDT
  
  I think you misunderstood the premise.
  
  The reformist gang in Iran can’t make a deal with Trump anymore, for obvious reasons. But if Biden becomes President, they will have a chance to renew the deal which they once touted as the greatest diplomatic foreign policy achievement of all time.
  
  The reformists only hope to cling to power is with Western support, in my opinion. Support that Obama was willing to give, but Trump has not. I imagine the reformists are thinking that a Biden presidency will lend them legitimacy, which their whole enterprise lost when Trump pulled out of the deal.
  
  As such, a Trump presidency is better for Iranian sovereignty, whereas a Biden presidency is better for Iranian reformists.
  
  I think the real question is, how did the Iranian reformist party become the opponent of Iranian sovereignty?
Tuco on November 01, 2020 · at 3:22 pm EST/EDT

Reasonable article reflecting the widespread desire for peace in Iran.

Will Biden give it to them? Sure wish he would.
- Minute by Minute on November 02, 2020 · at 4:24 am EST/EDT
  
  Are you kidding me?
  Show me a single original thought in this article, which is a tiresome regurgitation of the regurgitation of the kabuki analysis, that every other western analysts is spewing from RT to Fox to CNN. What a tragedy! A colonized mind playing analyst. Imagine that, educated people living in Iran opening their mouth and out coming western standardized analysis without a trace of the revolution, that they are surrounded with or a single idea or word of its founder!
  Perhaps the greatest trick the devil managed to bring upon the iranian people was to call a bunch of traitors and mentally colonized maggots REFORMISTS! Lucky for the rest of us, the cursed Rafsanjani, may he burn in hell for all eternity, openly declared, that the bahai Rouhani, who without a shadow of a doubt has been a british spy his entire life, is to finish the job and become the last president of the islamic revolution! And this bahai has done every thing humanly possible to destory the iranian revolution and the iranian economy. How funny it is, that these people are trying to sell to the iranian people the traitor Dehghan as a military strongman and president! Maybe the author has forgotten Dehghan standing in line like the rest of them to get his 30 coins of silver (in his case 100 coins of GOLD) for their treason call JCPOA. I kid you not, every single of these traitors received 100 gold coins for their treason from the hand of the british spy Rouhani on tv!
  40 years ago when the country was in shatters the leader of the revolution Imam Khomeini said, that america can do nothing! And 40 years while we have become a world power changing the course of history, these mentally colonized monkey worry about some monster sitting in the whitehouse means to the rest the iranian people, as if our economic problems are rooted in the western sanctions. what a lie!
  Maybe these words by Sartre written in the foreword of the great and eternal hero of all the oppressed in history Fanon’s “the wretched of the earth” can resonate with these people. funny enough their colonial masters don’t even need to pay for a ticket anymore:
  “Not so very long ago, the earth numbered two thousand million inhabitants: five hundred million men, and one thousand five hundred million natives. The former had the Word; the others had the use of it. Between the two there were hired kinglets, overlords, and a bourgeoisie, sham from beginning to end, which served as go-betweens. In the colonies the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes on: the native had to love them, something in the way mothers are loved. The European elite undertook to manufacture a native elite. They picked out promising adolescents; they branded them, as with a red-hot iron, with the principles of Western culture; they stuffed their mouths full with high-sounding phrases, grand glutinous words that stuck to the teeth. After a short stay in the mother country they were sent home, whitewashed. These walking lies had nothing left to say to their brothers; they only echoed. From Paris, from London, from Amsterdam we would utter the words “Parthenon! Brotherhood!” and somewhere in Africa or Asia lips would open “. . . thenon! . . . therhood!” It was the golden age.”
disgusted on November 01, 2020 · at 3:43 pm EST/EDT

Oh my God! I thought the Iranians were a shrewd and astute people. Biden the senile is not going to be Biden the peacemaker. Putting up a senile old man shows that the deep state is now shedding all pretenses.

Whether it is Tweedledee or Tweedledum elected in the US, Iran had better prepare itself for a long, long struggle ahead. Unless and until Iran, China, Russia and others create alternatives to the USD and its banking and international trade institutions, neither Trump nor Biden nor Mickey Mouse will be doing anything for Iran’s benefit. Which American administration over the past seventy years has proven beneficial to Iran?
- Final Conflict on November 01, 2020 · at 7:53 pm EST/EDT
  
  You mean you’re actually surprised that there exists a diversity of opinion in Iran and that Iranians are not a monolithic group locked into Orwellian groupthink like inhuman Zionists?
P. Bear on November 01, 2020 · at 3:52 pm EST/EDT

I have to disagree with the author and support Bernhard of Moon of Alabama, who wrote here:

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/10/what-would-a-democratic-presidency-really-change.html

“I believe that Harris (Biden) will disappoint on both of those issues. The neoconservatives have already infested the Harris (Biden) camp. They will make sure that JCPOA does not come back:

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/10/neoconservatives-are-flocking-to-biden-and-lets-forget-about-the-iran-deal/”

Also, he wrote: “The Democratic White House team Escobar describes (Clinton, Blinken, Rice, Flournoy) would be an assembly of well known war mongers who all argue for hawkish policies. The main ‘enemies’, Russia and China, would be the same as under Trump. Syria, Venezuela, Iran and others would stay on the U.S. target list. U.S. foreign policy would thereby hardly change from Trump’s version but would probably be handled with more deadly competence.”

What’s not to hate?
Zidar on November 01, 2020 · at 4:10 pm EST/EDT

SO there are liberals in Iran, who want to ne ‘civilized and part of international community’. Could it be the same liberals that – 1990 war in Bosnia sent Iran’s special units to fight with Clinton against Serbs? In spite Bosnia muslims being Sunni, and Iranians being Shia? Who likes Clinton, why would they mot like Biden? I appreciate Iran and Iranians honestly. But if Iranian leadership or powers to be really think about going cozy with USA – Biden, I am worried for the future of Iran and Iranian people. If this is how it is, I see Iran being in for a revolution, colored and being supported by international community. How sad.
- Final Conflict on November 01, 2020 · at 7:46 pm EST/EDT
  
  Again, this Bosnia canard. So-called “liberals” in Iran did not send “special units to fight with Clinton against Serbs.” The “liberals” were and continue to be against Iran getting involved in foreign wars and conflicts, such as Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, etc. The “liberals” have no influence or power over Sepah (IRGC) and in point of fact, are continually in conflict with Sepah and want to see it dismantled. The “liberals” were very happy when Trump declared Sepah to be an international terrorist organization and many of them were even quietly happy that Gen. Soleimani was murdered.
  
  Furthermore, your comment seems to imply that Iran, being a Shia-majority civilization, should not assist the Sunni when they are being subject to ethnic cleansing and genocide. In case you are not aware, Iran itself has a significant Sunni minority spread across a number of different ethnic groups. There is no prejudice against the Sunni in Iranian society and in fact, it is illegal in Iran to spread prejudice or hostility against the Sunni.
  
  The idea that Iran is anti-Sunni is a product of anti-Iranian, anti-Persian, anti-Shia (take your pick) propaganda from the Arab world, generally from Wahhabi, Salafi, and secular pan-Arabist sources as well as Western and Zionist mass media. Israel and its Wahhabi partners are currently pushing this narrative to the extreme in an attempt to isolate Iran from the rest of the Muslim world.
  
  It was Sepah that provided assistance and arms to Bosnian Muslims when the rest of the world was ignoring them and abandoning them to be slaughtered. Indeed, Soleimani himself had been in Bosnia in 1993 and 1994. Keep in mind that Sepah only sent advisors and arms, not entire units. Whenever Iran and Sepah have been asked for help, they go out of their way to do so. Iran also accepted large numbers of Bosnian refugees, regardless of religion. Iran’s support for the Bosniaks was always defensive, to protect innocent civilians from massacre.
  
  Also, the Zionist-Wahhabi apparatus had been making illegal attempts to involve themselves in the Yugoslav War and send genocidal jihadists there. No one in Bosnia requested help from Wahhabis, nor did anyone in Bosnia want a bunch of bloodthirsty jihadists fighting on their side. Without Iran’s intervention, these jihadists would have been allowed to spread carnage and bloodshed everywhere, including against Bosniaks themselves.
  
  The situation during the Yugoslav Wars was far from black-and-white and to attempt using Iran’s support for Bosniaks as some kind of anti-Serb action is absurd. Iran always supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and was firmly opposed to the breakup and up until Serbia was fully hijacked by Zionist politicians aligned with EU/NATO in recent years, maintained excellent relations with the Serbian government. One of Iran’s most important cultural centers abroad happens to be in Belgrade.
  - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 1:12 am EST/EDT
    
    Thank you for this comment, Final Conflict.
    
    I was always under the impression that Iran went to Bosnia to protect the Muslims from genocide, and after they requested help. I was under the impression that Iran was the only Muslim country who went there to actually help, whereas the others went for less noble reasons.
    
    But many times on this site I have been confronted by Serbs who seem to have a very skewed perspective about what actually went down.
    
    I am glad that you cleared this up.
  - Ken Leslie on November 02, 2020 · at 8:30 am EST/EDT
    
    Please consider this. Iran, the pariah of pariahs joined the Great Satan in 1992 to “help” Sunnis who were trying to introduce a Khalifate in Bosnia under the Islamist and and ex-SS volunteer Alija Izetbegovic who issued a Bosnian passport to Osama BIn Laden in 1993. The Iranians were not only helping the Sunnis but also Croats with more than a tacit approval by the US and the UK. At that time, the Serbs who were looking for a compromise (and found it with a moderate Muslim leader) were being attacked and demonised by the entire West and Islamic community (thank you Colonel Gaddafi and Egypt) and scorned by a Zionist-ruled Russia.
    
    These days, Iran finds itself in the position that the Serbs were in in the 1990s. The Serbs as far as I can see are cheering you on. They are not tempted to help the West by running you down, denigrating you etc. Can you see my point? The Serbs wish you all the best – show some empathy outside your religion – this is where true empathy starts. The Serbs have not actively supported the murder of Iranians. Can you say the same vice versa?
    
    Iran was the first government to send covert arms supplies to Bosnia when, in September 1992, a Boeing 747 carrying small arms, ammunition, anti-tank rockets and communications equipment landed in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. This marked the beginning of the ‘Croatian pipeline’, a supply line to Bosnian forces in Sarajevo as well as to the Croatians. The Iranian arms shipments ran for around a year before being reduced in late 1993 due to increased conflict between the Bosnian Muslims and Croat forces. During this stage, the US turned a blind eye to the shipments. In April 1994, however, President Clinton, in high-level meetings in Washington, explicitly gave a ‘green light’ to further Iranian supplies to bolster the Bosnian Muslim and Croat forces. After this, senior Croatian and Bosnian Muslim ministers visited Iranian President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani in Tehran and drew up a tripartite agreement for arms supplies and humanitarian aid. The arms flow began again on 4 May 1994, and around eight flights a month subsequently took place that year, rising to around three a week by early 1995. US government estimates of the amount of Iranian equipment supplied varied from 5,000 to 14,000 tons from May 1994 to January 1996. It was then that the clandestine supplies halted again, after US ground troops were stationed in the region following the Dayton Accords that ended the war.
    
    http://markcurtis.info/2016/10/11/a-covert-war-in-bosnia/
  - Ken Leslie on November 02, 2020 · at 10:11 am EST/EDT
    
    As a son of Islam, you should think twice before crowing your own innocence and “exceptionalness”. Bosnian Sunni extremists were nothing but pliant tools of the West – like the Saudi and Turkish head choppers killing scores of your soldiers and militias today. The Serbs were the true freedom fighters that you are now emulating. Horror – but they are not Muslim!!! It will take some time to sink in.
    - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 10:56 am EST/EDT
      
      Freedom fighters? I thought the Serbs were ethnically cleansing the Muslim population. Am I missing something here?
      
      I was only five years old when that conflict happened, Ken. I cannot say that I know the true story. But I find the fact that you compare the Serbian people committing genocide to the Iranian struggle a bit disturbing.
      
      Can you please explain why you believe the Serbs were freedom fighters?
      - Ken Leslie on November 02, 2020 · at 1:06 pm EST/EDT
        
        I’ll repeat once again and for the last time. In 1992, Iran joined the Roman Catholic/Zionist war against the Serbs in Bosnia which was sold to the Muslims as a genocide. Some exceptional Muslim leaders such as Colonel Gaddafi did not take the bait and condemned the ganging up on the Serbs (as did the Egyptians I think).
        
        The brilliant thing is that today, those same “victims” of genocide are killing Iranians and Hezbollah and the satanic West which had organised the war against the Serbs is now killing Iran as a nation. Yet, you continue with the tired Western propaganda trope that somehow you were defending Muslims while sticking your head up Clinton’s fundamentum all the way. Is it not tragicomic?
        
        If you can’t understand this, there is no point in discussing this further. I am not trying to insult or besmirch Iran – on the contrary. Friends have to be able to criticise friends. But despite Saker’s best efforts, I don’t think we are there yet. The best I can hope for is honourable rivalry. You know, when great Saladin took mercy on Richard and nursed him back to health – that to me is much better and more honest than insincere tactical partnyorships.
        
        Again, no hard feelings from me and I do wish you and Iran all the best. This is a good time to institute radio silence because I am working on what is potentially a game changer.
      - Zidar on November 03, 2020 · at 7:13 pm EST/EDT
        
        Now this does require a reply. You say “I thought the Serbs were ethnically cleansing the Muslim population. Am I missing something here?” Yes, you are missing something. How do you know who was right who was wrong in Bosnian war? Who told you that? If it was media, then I have no other choice that to think whatever USA tells us about Iran, which is ridiculous.
        
        Then you confirm that “But I find the fact that you compare the Serbian people committing genocide to the Iranian struggle a bit disturbing.” Again, you take “Serbian people committing genocide” as undisputable fact, coming straight from Quran or the Bible, those two Books we do not question. Yet there is nothing in the Books about Bosnian or any other kind of Serbs.
        
        You also say “I was only five years old when that conflict happened, Ken. I cannot say that I know the true story.” Now you are talking. You do not know the true story but you find OK to insult Serbs, for no reason. If that is what Iranians think secretly about Serbs, than we have a problem here. Is that what awaits us after the struggle with Anglo Zio is ended? We seem not to be any better than them, hey we are genocidal and ethnical cleansers..
        
        I am not mad, nor offended in particular, I feel absolutely nothing, except maybe amazement. But it should not be a surprise. You seem to be age of my kids, and since we lived in the West, they also questioned “what Serbs did to Bosnians and Croats”. Such is the propaganda and brain washing. All I can say is a quote from the Book ” Please Father, forgive them they do not know what they are doing”.
        
        I don’t trust a thing may Jewish friends tall me about Iran, nor USA media or EU. Not because what I learned on the forum, because I am old enough to think with my own head. When you learn more about the truth in Bosnia and Yugoslavia, bay listening to more than one side, you will understand the meaning of “not everything is black and white”.
        
        After all, I did not say Iranian people. It was Rafsanjani’s government at the time. Just like you do not judge serbs through Milosevic, we do not judge Iranians or nobody else through elected or appointed governments. Governments are a nation in itself. Governments of Iran, Serbia, Croatia, even former Yugoslavia are much closer to each other than to people they govern. By the way, in Yugoslavia, the Shah was in high esteem by Tito, hence we all adored the Shah and queen Farrah Dibhah (apologies for the spelling). They visited Yugoslavia and were treated with full respects and glamour, just like Soviets or Americans those days. Does it mean we prefer Shah to Khomeini or vice versa? No, Iranians know what is best for them. However, if they are in the NATO/Zio/USA crosshair, that is enough for us to pick a side. Beside Jewish friends, I have more than one Iranian friends. Some are pro shahs, some are pro Khomeini. Some are against Shah, but against religious rule. Some are happy that Iran is a theocracy, socialist one. Some do not care, they complain about corruption.
        Why does all that somehow reminds me of my country?
        
        Stay well my friend, we are on the same side – human, against ZIO and fake reformists and fake liberals. I don’t care if general Soleimani was in Bosnia. He is a true great person. We may have been on the opposite sides back then, without even knowing that. Luckily we did not shoot each other. As people age, they learn and change their point of view. The Serbian colonel whose unit shot the “invisible” F117 (?), become best friend with the pilot of the F-117. They visited each other, in USA and Serbia, become personal friends.
        
        Stay well.
        
        Jamshyd on November 03, 2020 · at 11:57 pm EST/EDT
        
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide
        
        So, this Wikipedia page is just disinformation? I’ll grant it wouldn’t be the first; the whole thing is disinformation.
        
        Look, mate, why don’t you or one of your friends actually tell your version of events, as you think it went down, instead of what you all have been doing so far. You have not offered any facts, just denials, as far as I can see.
        
        I have no horse in this race. My first encounter with Serbs, in my whole life, has been these attacks against me here on this site, some more vicious than others, even though I haven’t made a single negative remark about Serbs. But I don’t know even one Bosnian Muslim, nor have I ever been harrassed by them online because of my religion and ethnicity.
        
        You have all made your anti-Muslim sentiments very clear as far as I’m concerned.
        
        As I said, I am happy to see things from your perspective. I have yet to see anyone put forward that perspective. All I see is anti-Muslim, anti-Iranian sentiments coming from the lot of you.
        
        Some Serbs on this site are rabidly anti-Muslim. And their behavior only reinforces the plausibility of Serbs having massacred Muslims.
        
        Perhaps look to yourselves, before running into a thread about US elections, and ganging up on and pointing the finger at Iranians.
        
        djole on November 04, 2020 · at 6:39 am EST/EDT
        
        Wikipedia? Western propaganda, that you complain about when it comes to their relationship with the Iranians. Hypocrisy can also be mentioned. Deliberately aiming for a war between the Orthodox and the Muslims while Catholic / Protestant West profited. The number of victims of 3.5 thousand in various media and the so-called institutions of the West after the war has to date reached 8,000. There may be even 60,000 if all Muslims who died in the war are included in the statistics. Then the Serbs can go to about 35,000 buried in Bratunac near Srebrenica, where they have objectivly buried 3,200 civilians from the Srebrenica municipality(iuder UN protection) who were actually killed by Naser Oric’s butchers before atack of Serb forces. And no official Western delegation mentions that victims and cemetery. Where does that lead and where is the reality and respect for the victims. It is just an interest in keeping Serbs in a small colonial Serbian principality allowed only on the other side of the Drina River at the 1868 Berlin Congress. To date, DNA analysis has shown that many people who are confirmed as Bosniaks by west institutions in the Srebrenica cemetery are of other nationalities, that they were buried in two places in Bosnia, that Muslims who died in Serbia were reported to have died in Srebrenica. that Roma and Serbs from the municipalities around Srebrenica were added to the list and so on. Almost until last year when the Americans decided to dispel the myth of a fair international tribunal in The Hague (which they made to judge others but not them) Serbs were not allowed to open an international independent controversy debate on the subject. As they themselves (since it suits them to hide their responsibility) have decided to abolish The Hague, an international group of investigators started to work in the field under the institutions of Serbia and Republika Srpska for some time now and should come up with accurate information about what happened. What was confirmed by the pathological analysis after the war events is that the number of killed mobilized men aged 16-60 (not the boys, as they state) was over 400. Check in the relevant forensic studies. I would be greatful to Saker to allow me to answer you although it is not the theme of an article. However some conclusions should be made for the future of all of us.
        
        Jamshyd on November 04, 2020 · at 7:12 am EST/EDT
        
        And why is it that you and your fellow Serbs seem to expect that I should know all this, djole?
        
        As I said, I’ve never met or talked to a single Serb before coming to this site. How is it that I am expected to know what happened in Serbia 30 years ago?
        
        Did I bring up the subject?
        
        I was confronted (attacked!?) by your mates, who brought up this topic. All I know about it is what I have heard, which is the same as what Final Conflict so neatly summed up in his reply to Zidar.
        
        You are saying that the official narrative is a lie. I can certainly agree with that; the official narrative is always a lie.
        
        I will make sure to never bring up the subject of the Serbian war here, ever again. Not that I ever did to begin with.
        
        But I will not apologize for the actions of the Iranian government and Revolutionary Guard Corps thirty years ago, and I will not be made to feel like I should. It is simply none of my business; I am a civilian, and am in no way affiliated with the Iranian government or the Sepah.
        
        I can readily believe that the Iranians could have made a mistake; they are human after all, and I have been watching them make mistake after mistake my whole life. I can just as easily believe that white Europeans killed Muslims, because, well, it’s what they have been doing my whole life.
        
        But I have to bow out of this debate, respectfully. I simply don’t know what happened in Serbia, and I will probably never know. But I sure as hell am not going to discuss anything pertaining to Serbia here ever again.
        
        djole on November 04, 2020 · at 9:01 am EST/EDT
        
        Fair enough. There are muslims and Muslims with honor, the same as Christians with honor and without it. Who were accidentally born into a Christian folk, but are actually opportunists as their parents. Putting any man who happened to be born among Christians in christianity is madness. The same for a nationalists. There are many fools that call themselves Serbs, but as my grandfather sad …His bull was also born among Serbs, however he is not a Serb. There are also secular people who should be respected if they keep the morals, the commandments of God. Those who have gone through war and suffering know how to respect the other side and behave knightly in battle. Oportunists don’t. In any case, I know that nationalism is not welcome among Muslim believers, but I think it is a mistake to put the faith before nation tradition and history. There is Iran and there are other Muslim nations. There are Serbs and other Christians. Before Islam, Iran had a history that should not be given up. We Serbs, too. Regards
        
        Anonymous on November 04, 2020 · at 10:31 am EST/EDT
        
        LOL.
        
        Citing Wikipedia now?
        
        This guy is clueless.
        
        Yes, Wikipedia is disinformation–as is most of the psyops that masquerades as a Free Press in general.
        
        Iran is not innocent.
        
        Iran tacitly helped America (the Great Satan) and Europe (like Germany) as part of their dismemberment of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
        
        America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims
        https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/22/warcrimes.comment
        
        Also, have you ever heard of a little thing called the Iran-Contra scandal, where Iran worked with the USA as part of its dirty war against Nicaragua in the 1980s?
        
        Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs
        https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/
        
        And, get this, Iran has had secret back-channel negotiations with the hated Zionist Enemy, Israel, despite officially not even recognizing this country.
        
        Religion in general–Muslim or Zionism or Christian–is just ideological propaganda for fundamentalists to follow.
        
        Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
        https://mepc.org/treacherous-alliance-secret-dealings-israel-iran-and-united-states
        
        “When it comes to relations among Iran, Israel and the United States, realism in the pursuit of the core interest of the nation-state has a tendency to override ideological disposition — whether Islamic fundamentalism, radical Zionism or American neo-conservatism.”
        
        Jamshyd on November 04, 2020 · at 11:15 am EST/EDT
        
        “Yes, Wikipedia is disinformation–as is most of the psyops that masquerades as a Free Press in general.”
        
        Oh, is it? Well, I guess the following is all disinformation then.
        
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair
        
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trita_Parsi#Treacherous_Alliance
        
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_support_in_the_Bosnian_War
        
        Thanks for clearing that up, mate.
    - Final Conflict on November 02, 2020 · at 7:16 pm EST/EDT
      
      “As a son of Islam … The Serbs were the true freedom fighters that you are now emulating. Horror – but they are not Muslim!!!”
      
      Where in my comments here do you see me saying anything negative about Serbs or Christians? As I’ve written, Iran strongly opposed the breakup of Yugoslavia, yet your comments imply that Iran is complicit with NATO in destroying Yugoslavia as part of an anti-Serb conspiracy. There is zero evidence for this. As you yourself admit, Iran assisted Croats, who are Roman Catholic, and Iran has consistently backed Christian Armenia against nominally Muslim Republic of Azerbaijan.
      
      But, in your eyes, a Muslim is still worth less than a Christian, yes? This is like the patronizing argument that the Shia, while Muslim, are at leas better than the Sunni because at least they don’t go around beheading people and cannibalizing corpses like the Wahhabi.
      
      You even write, “The Serbs wish you all the best – show some empathy outside your religion – this is where true empathy starts.” Come on, man. Where do you see the anti-Serb ranting exactly? Where have I said anything against Christians?
      
      You make a big deal of denigrating Iranian Muslims as being somehow anti-Christian or motivated by anti-Christian sentiment and what I do see is your denial that Bosniaks were being massacred. Croats (who are Roman Catholic) were also massacred, as were Serbs. Your arguments are suggesting that the Bosniaks and Croats were 100% evil and Serbs were 100% innocent. There were crimes committed on all sides, but to deny the massacres of innocent Bosniaks and Croats is really over-the-top.
      
      This is like those who deny Shia, Kurds, and Persians were being ethnically cleansed by Saddam during the eight-year long imposed war where he indiscriminately used chemical weapons against Iranian cities as well as Shia and Kurdish civilian centers.
      
      I suppose you believe that Milosevic was not a corrupt gangster politician who helped accelerate the destruction of Yugoslavia and the South Slavic idea in order to establish Greater Serbia at the expense of other South Slavic peoples. It has been widely acknowledged in Serbian nationalist circles that Milosevic was never a true patriot, but a fraud. Like Saddam and Aliyev and other like-minded despots, he used the language of ethnic chauvinism to mask a degenerate regime that existed to line his and his family’s pockets.
      
      Milosevic was the greatest enemy of the Serbian people. That may not be a popular idea here, but I’ve been to Serbia plenty of times and I have a great many Serbian friends and I’ve never met anyone who had anything but contempt for Milosevic and the criminal gangs he sponsored and cultivated. But even then Iran made no moves against Milosevic himself or his regime, and it supported Serbia’s territorial integrity and opposed NATO’s war against Serbia to “liberate” Kosovo.
      
      Your comment that Iran today is in the same position Serbia was in the 1990s is also incorrect.
      
      Iran went through eight long years of hell of war instigated by the U.S. and its Western allies who provided Saddam with unlimited weapons, including arsenals of chemical weapons that they knew would be used against civilians. Even the Soviet Union backed Iraq.
      
      Iran was almost entirely isolated and on its own during the war and its only major ally was Syria, which could only provide limited support. All of the world powers backed Iraq.
      
      Add to that the sustained campaign of economic terrorism since the Revolution which has not stopped, as well as all the proxy wars directed against Iran since the 1980s, and all the other Western-Zionist actions against Iran, and you’re actually claiming Iran today is in the position of Serbia in the 1990s?
      
      Ludicrous. There has not been a single moment since the 1979 Revolution when Iran has not under sustained and prolonged attack on all fronts. No other country has been sanctioned and terrorized as much as Iran has by global Zionism.
      
      But keep talking about how evil Muslims are, except of course for those few “exceptional Muslims” — the “good Muslims,” right?
      - djole on November 03, 2020 · at 4:42 am EST/EDT
        
        This is not the teme, but we need to clarify something because this blog is read by many people. If Saker allow, I will be short.
        I think you contradict yourself Final Conflict. Milosevic never wanted a Greater Serbia, but to keep what he could from Yugoslavia, leaving the Serbs where he could. He considered himself a Yugoslav, not a Serb. If it was a Serb and if the Yugoslav army (that separated the parties in war) was as the west media represent it, there would probably not be Bosniaks and Croats today, but what the history confirm–Serbs of the Islamic and Catholic faiths. A never-existed Bosniak muslim nation would not be created in a hotel room run by Anglo-Zionists and the Vatican. In Slovenia, for example, they celebrate the day when “hunting society” and “firefighters” push for a “victory” over 60,000 military personnel ?? Funny, unbelievable. Milosevic is celebrated only by Yugoslav souls who have not seen the line of war. Milosevic wanted from Serbs to be (only one from all new formed nations) Yugoslavs and to defend what was indefensible. He helped everyone else to create nations, and that is why he should get at least a street in every single country in the Balkans except Serbia.
  - Ken Leslie on November 02, 2020 · at 10:59 am EST/EDT
    
    Just so that you understand the magnitude of what you are dealing with, I completely support Iran in its struggle. So do most Serbs. It is just that your government under Rafsanjani contributed to the genocide of the Serbs. The Serbs will never return the favour.
    - Epithet The Angry :-) on November 02, 2020 · at 2:24 pm EST/EDT
      
      Dear Ken,
      
      Thank heavens your post got through. Let me try one more time….. I’m forever grateful to you and The Saker for your brave and moral positions. Thank you!
      
      I’m saddened, having to continue reading these kind of childish, self aggrandizing and ignorant comments. Truly don’t know if they realize how foolish they sound? Using fabricated lies and propaganda created by the same Zionist empire, who employs this tactic against Iran today. These lies have been debunked here at the vineyard, by the Saker himself:
      
      Kosovo Will be Liberated (TheSaker, 2017)
      
      “One of the worst aspects of the war was the absolutely disgraceful behavior of Muslim nations and communities worldwide: they all supported their supposed ‘brethren’ in Bosnia even though the latter were 1) useful idiots for the Empire 2) mostly secular and 3) when religious, then of an imported “Saudi wahhabi” kind (just like in Chechnia, by the way). Instead of trying to make sense of what was really taking place, the overwhelming majority of Muslims worldwide reacted in knee-jerk manner I call “wrong or right – my Ummah!”, even the Iranians fell into that AngloZionist trap. Muslims worldwide were conned by the Empire only to find themselves in exactly the same situation as the Serbs, only a decade later. Some would say that this is just karmic justice, but I take no joy in that since the Muslim who ended up on the receiving end of the Empire’s policies were overwhelmingly innocent victims and not those politicians who allied themselves with modern Crusaders and Jews against their Orthodox neighbors. Nowadays the (fictional) “genocide” of Bosnian-Muslims by Serb and, especially, the myth of Srebrenica is still used by the Empire to try to divide Orthodox Christians and Muslim to better rule over them all or, even better, to let them fight each other”
      
      I strongly encourage the commenters above to read The Saker’s “Kosovo will be Liberated” article. It could prevent them from continuing to be apologists for the Anglo-Zionist empire.
      - Ken Leslie on November 02, 2020 · at 2:52 pm EST/EDT
        
        Thank you, Epithet,
        
        You are absolutely right and you demonstrate the higher moral stance of the Serbs who do not dance on the graves of their enemies. And thanks to the Saker for his brave stance too.
        
        Could you do me a favour? Can you ask our host to give you my email so you can contact me privately? I’d like to consult you on a historical matter.
        
        Thanks again!
        
        Epithet on November 02, 2020 · at 4:55 pm EST/EDT
        
        I’d be honored to help. Will do it immediately Ken! Hopefully I can be of some assistance.
      - Jamshyd on November 02, 2020 · at 11:07 pm EST/EDT
        
        Ken and Epithet the Angry,
        
        Why do you feel the need to attack Iran?
        
        You understand how complicated Iranian political theatre is, and you understand how detailed and minute the lies of the global Zionist enemy are.
        
        So, I ask again, what is the point of this veiled hate and aggression against Iran, who has so dutifully fought the enemy on so many fronts for so long, and has protected so many oppressed people from the ruthless hate of the enemy?
        
        Perhaps Iran was deceived by the guile of the enemy, or perhaps the Serbs were. Or perhaps both.
        
        You do understand that this is how the enemy operates, by pitting people and nations against each other, right?
        
        So, why are you playing right into their hands?
    - Final Conflict on November 02, 2020 · at 8:42 pm EST/EDT
      
      No, you do not support Iran or the Iranian people, because you slander Iranians in the most vicious manner by falsely accusing them of being complicit in the genocide of Serbs. That is beyond insane.
      
      Funny how not a single Serbian official or statesmen or academic, in all these years of mutual relations and trade and cultural exchange between Iran and Serbia, have ever accused Iran of doing any such thing. I don’t think I’ve ever even come across any Zionist sources that dare to make such a ridiculous accusation.
      
      This is all straight out of clown world.
  - djole on November 02, 2020 · at 4:34 pm EST/EDT
    
    There was no genocide or attempted genocide. Only war crime. A pathological autopsy recorded the appearance of more than 400 soldier corpses shot by a special diversant units. In that detachment, in addition to Serb mercenaries, there were foreign mercenaries, for example French ….then Bosnian Muslims, Croats, and even one Slovenac. Old people, women and children were transferred from the city of Srebrenica to Muslim territory via a UN buses. I repeat, only soldiers were killed as revenge for 3200 dead serb civilians in the Srebrenica county..The large number of muslim soldiers was killed in the breakthrough battles to Tuzla with the regular army of the Republika Srpska where the losses were on both sides. Also there are enough evidences that two bosniak groups quarreled and killed each other. Not a topic, I don’t want to get into the discussion further to be ban by mod, but is not bad to repeat material.
Uncle Bob on November 01, 2020 · at 4:13 pm EST/EDT

Seriously flawed thinking. Biden and even more Harris are almost as pro-Israel as Trump,not as much,but close. The neo-cons of both parties are almost totally on Biden’s side.They aren’t doing that because they want peace. Biden might want to return to the nuclear deal. But for political reasons he would have to have some “win” against Iran to cover them for returning. And I don’t see Iran agreeing to that. What Biden might say to win an election isn’t the same as what he would do. Trump is the politician that says and does the same thing,not Biden.
Miles Phillips on November 01, 2020 · at 4:17 pm EST/EDT

Trump was worse for Iran than every other single president. Hard to see how his “maximum pressure” could get more maximized. I can see why they’d want him out of there and take their chances on pretty much anybody else.
hakim on November 01, 2020 · at 5:14 pm EST/EDT

As an Iranian I have to say that if this article was published in Iran right now it would’ve been trashed by people
this kind of thinking is only expected from reformist (brainwashed by foreign media like bbc ,voa etc) or from 5th column reformist aka Rouhani and Khatami.
Iranian shia people are a lot better and wiser than what this article says.
ps: sorry for my bad English and sorry for my rude language to the author

Some of your words have been removed – as breaks site rules. Mod.
- Zidar on November 03, 2020 · at 12:33 am EST/EDT
  
  Thank you. Instead of fighting with Final Conflict and Jamshed, I recommend your post.
  
  Also this is a quote from another post, written by by Ramin Mazaheri: “then why should an Iranian believe that victories by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party will herald a major change in Washington’s belligerent, murderous, long-running policy towards Iran? ”
  
  Jamshed was 5 years old at the time, yet he knows everything he needs to know about Serbs in Bosnia. Final Conflicts age I don’t know, it does not matter. I agree with him on question of Milosevic, traitor and so on. What you guys don’t or refuse to know is that the Same Milosevic traitor did betray – Bosnian Serbs. True, he was influential in starting the war, but not himself, of course, only to renounce them openly and stop all the help. Since Rafsanjani sent Iranian special forcers to Bosnia against Bosnian Serbs, it makes him and Milosevic comrades in fight. Together with Clinton and NATO they were all fighting Bosnian Serbs.
  
  My understanding is that Rafsanjani is not considered too patriotic, rather pro west liberal, no? O it was not Iran that sent special units, it was Rafsanjani, and that is my point. Not Iran, but a ruler at the time, figured out that nothing against Serbs, yet we go and fight to protect Bosnians (mostly secular, if not than inclined to Wahabi), fellow Muslims, from genocide and ethnic cleansing. I have many Iranian friends where I live, and no, they do not think the way of Final Conflict or Jamshed, that Rafsanjani gave evil Serbs what they deserved – genocide is not small thing, so just like USA we reserve right to protect.
  
  No worries, I know better than to take emotional reactions too seriously.
  
  As for propaganda and history books, they will tell you about Serbs cleansing and genociding Kosovo Albanians in 1999. That is not true, but everybody can think as they wish. Funny, Serbs did clean Kosovo of Albanians, yet nobody is talking about that, even Albanians. Perhaps everybody forgot, since it happened in 1918.Serbs went through Kosovo and Albania in 1916 when they were retreating form German offensive. That journey was apparently not so pleasant experience for Serbs, in part due to treatment by Albanians. How bad the treatment was, I don’t know. What I know, right in 1918 (or maybe 1919, does not matter for the story) Serbia sent avenging expedition to Kosovo (somewhat like Ukrainian “punishers” sent to Donbas). And avenge they did. They would march through a village, shoulder to shoulder, 50 soldiers wide and literally destroyed everything in front, living or non living. How do I know this? My grandfather was conscripted immediately after WWI ended and he participated in the operation. I never heard of that story from anybody else, Either grandpa was lying or the cleanup was such that no witness survived to talk.
  
  Media and politicians will hide real things and invent false events. Do not believe everything media tells.
  There were very brutal episodes in Bosnian war, done by all sides, including Serbs, that are never mentioned in media. Instead, half truths and total fake truths were presented. As for genocide or ethnic cleansing, there is still quite number of Serbs, Croats and Muslims in Bosnia. The only ethnic cleansing that happened was when Croats expelled Serbs from Croatia, in operation Storm. Those people never returned home. In Bosnia, many people died, and every nation was fighting every other, some times among themselves: Serbs – Muslims, Serbs Croats, Serbs and Croats against Muslims, Muslims – Croats with Serbs helping Croats escape, and Muslims against Muslims. Whatever they tell you about that war, do not believe anything and anybody.
  
  And yes, Iran is in the same position as Serbs were back then, minus NATO bombing and civil war. We had sanctions too. Russia was weak and betrayed herself by its rulers back then, so no help from them either. You have them on your side, at least (So do we nowadays, in spite of our president turning his back to them).
  
  Cheers, and may the Great Satan vanish. Oh, how I miss AhmediNejad…..
  - Jamshyd on November 03, 2020 · at 2:17 am EST/EDT
    
    “Jamshed was 5 years old at the time, yet he knows everything he needs to know about Serbs in Bosnia.”
    
    I said I don’t know the true story, mate.
    
    And where did I say “that Rafsanjani gave evil Serbs what they deserved”, as you claim?
    
    In fact, where have I ever made anti-Serbian remarks?
  - Final Conflict on November 03, 2020 · at 6:09 am EST/EDT
    
    Yet again you are accusing Iranians of anti-Serb bias. As previously stated, Iran did not send special forces to fight against Serbs. Sepah sent advisors to help the Bosniaks, who were the most marginalized group of the Yugoslav peoples, and arms were provided for the defense of their homeland. Rafsanjani was not the decision maker as to whether to help the Bosniaks or not — Sepah gives the orders, not Rafsanjani. The ultimate decision was always up to Sepah and Gen. Soleimani was in charge of overseas operations, and he was a key architect in organizing the defense of Bosniaks and training their soldiers, as well as protecting them from infiltration from Wahhabi jihadists that Zionist-Saudi regimes were attempting to impose on the region.
    
    The Iranian strategy in Bosnia was defensive in nature, not offensive. In other words, the mission was not anti-Serb in nature, nor was there any mission to attack or destroy Serbia. Iran and Sepah are not interested in imperialism, which is what the Zionists and U.S. Republicans were accusing Iran of at the time. The reality was Iran was there to protect Bosniaks and help them defend their lands, just
    
    Sepah’s missions overseas are always about the defense of the oppressed and dispossessed, and Bosniaks were left without proper leadership or military advantage. If Milosevic had not destroyed Yugoslavia through gangsterism and taking actions that fueled ethnic chauvinist separatist movements across the different nationalities, none of this would have been necessary.
    
    Yugoslavia, when it was able to successfully unite the South Slavs under a single banner and sustain this productive co-existence, was a model regime. Unfortunately, it all started to unravel after Tito’s passing and by the the Milosevic became a powerful figure, the whole thing came crashing down.
    
    For Iran, the destruction of Yugoslavia, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, was an unmitigated disaster and set dangerous precedents since global Zionism has been seeking to Balkanize Iran for years, a strategy that originated with the British.
    
    In Iran, during the Yugoslav Wars, there was never any campaign of anti-Serb propaganda, in spite of the fact that Yugoslav leaders in the 1980s and Serbian leaders in the early 1990s accused Izetbegovic of trying to establish an Iranian-style Islamic republic in Bosnia, something which Iran absolutely did not support and Sepah had strongly advised Bosniak leaders to avoid Islamist tendencies in their government as that would make them a target of Zionist-Wahhabi infiltration which would lead to their inevitable destruction since that is the goal of Wahhabism, as it is a Talmudic cult of death.
    
    Iran’s relationship with the Milosevic was strained during the war, but Serbia was never an enemy of Iran and the Serbian people have never been enemies of the Iranian people, not then, not now, not ever. As I’ve written before, it is a fact that most Serbs opposed Milosevic and his criminal gangs and those of his cronies who committed massacres. Unlike in the Western world, there is no systemic hatred of Muslims or prejudice against them in Serbia, which has a significant population of Muslims.
    
    Based on online comment forums, however, if one had never stepped foot in Serbia, and based on comments here, one would think the opposite, that Serbs are generally anti-Muslim and that there is some kind of neverending war between Christians and Muslims there. Fortunately, the reality is quite different. But believe whatever you wish to believe.
    
    In Iranian culture, specifically Persian culture, sweeping generalizations and racist stereotyping are considered major outrageously rude and racist. Serbia is a great nation with an ancient heritage that is possibly connected with or descended from ancient Iranian-speaking peoples (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329184431_On_The_Origins_Of_Proto-Croats_And_Proto-Serbs).
    
    So to posit Iran has ever having been enemy of the Serbian people is absurd and incorrect. There has never been this point of contention between Iran and Serbia, not even now when the neoliberal Serbian government has fallen under Zionist control and has increasingly taken anti-Iran actions.
    
    You can deny the reality that Bosniaks were the most marginalized of South Slav peoples, just as the Lebanese Shia were the most marginalized of all Lebanese groups, suffering prejudice at the hands of the Christian Maronite elites, most living in poverty and without any political power before the Civil War, when Iran helped them organize politically and militarily so that they could, for the first time, defend themselves effectively and assert themselves politically.
    
    Today, Hezbollah is the most popular party among Lebanese Christians, while the Zionist “Christian” Phalange imploded into oblivion.
    
    And yes, Ahmadinejad was ultimately proven correct in his predictions concerning the fake nuclear deal and the perfidious Zionist stooges of Washington.
    - Jamshyd on November 03, 2020 · at 7:38 am EST/EDT
      
      Final Conflict,
      
      I have two questions for you, mate.
      
      Do you have a fan club? Can I join? ;-)
      
      گردید کوه طاقت من پایدارتر
      
      چندان که تیغ و تیر شکستند در تنم
      
      دارد زبان به دشمن من تیغ من یکی
      
      در راه زخم، دام کشیده است جوشنم
      
      در طینت ملایم من نیست سرکشی
      
      باریکتر ز موی میان است گردنم
      
      صائب تلاش گلشن فردوس می کنم
      
      چون خار و خس اگر چه سزاوار گلخنم
      
      yandex translation … mod
      
      So much so that the blade and the arrow broke in my body
      
      There are tongues to my enemy my razor one
      
      On the way to the wound, the trap has drawn me boiling.
      
      Not in my gentle resentment.
      
      My neck is narrower.
      
      Saeb, I’m trying Golshan Ferdows.
      
      Even though I deserve a greenhouse,
      - Final Conflict on November 04, 2020 · at 12:26 pm EST/EDT
        
        Thank you, Jamshyd. I appreciate that very much.
    - Zidar on November 04, 2020 · at 12:39 am EST/EDT
      
      OK, to both of you, Jamsheed and Final Conflict, I apologize for offending you, it was not my intention at all.
      
      To clarify thins, let’s begin whit you say:
      “I was only five years old when that conflict happened, Ken. I cannot say that I know the true story. But I find the fact that you compare the Serbian people committing genocide to the Iranian struggle a bit disturbing.
      Can you please explain why you believe the Serbs were freedom fighters?”
      
      First, sentence like this “..compare the Serbian people committing genocide to the Iranian struggle a bit disturbing” is vary disturbing to most Serbs, Bosnian Serbs in particular.” Mention genocide in Bosnia and Serbs in the same sentence, most Serbs immediately jump. Serbs were the only side fighting to preserve Yugoslavia.
      
      Alleged Serbian genocide in Bosnia was totally uncalled for and unexpected. That is all.
      
      Serbs have no problem with Iranians protecting Bosnian Muslims, either. That was a simple fact, which did not affect anything. Wahabis are all over Bosnia today. Whatever you guys taught Bosnians, most likely has been passed on Wahabis. Would this world be much better place if Iran had not send help to Bosnians – most likely not, hence it was inconsequential event, yet puzzling for people who know all those nice things about Serbs and Iranians.
      
      I assumed that Rafsanjani was a bad guy and that would explain unreasonable and useless act at the time of great confusion. That is all, not as response to anything you guys said or did not say. I thought I was continuing to think along the same line.
      
      Shia/Sunni? Most Serbs have never heard about Shia/Sunni types of Muslim. Bosnian Muslims did not know about Shia/Sunni either, most of them are secular anyways. It took us all a few years to discover that, not that it matters.
      
      You may want to a book, by Dianne Johnston, “Fools Crusade”. It covers end of Yugoslavia, Croatian and Bosnian War, and Kosovo campaign. She did not say anything specially in favor of Serbs, she is neutral. Most of Serbs, including me had never heard of her until the book appeared.
      
      The difference between Serbian and Iran situation is only in size. Iran is huge country, benevolent. Serbia is small, benevolent too, never fought war of aggression. USA pushed you in war of not your choice, bloody 8 years with Iraq. They were attackers. We did not have 8 years of war at least not in one peace, and our number of death counts in thousands, not hundreds of thousands. we got bombed by USA/NATO twice. Second time 19 countries against tiny Serbia. With Canadian forces doing most of bombing, and Germans coming out of closet the first time since WW2. We too were under sanctions, for many years, 10 or 12, much easier to enforce, since Serbian borders are shorter than Iran’s.
      
      We know very well how you guys feel and if anybody, we do understand us. If there are things in the past that this or that government of ours or yours did, nothing we can do about it today. Water under the bridge.
      
      Tito, who you mentioned and obviously know about and respect him with reason, he was a great friend with shah Reza Pahlavi. When Shah and the queen (Farah Dibha?) visited Yugoslavia, he gave them real royal treatment. And we never learned at school what happened before shah. I was under impression that he was one of long line of Persian rulers, dynasty unknown to me. At that time we (Yugoslavians) did not even know that Iran is Muslim country. That thought downed on us when Khomeini came to Iran, although things were happening in Afghanistan at the same time, 1979-1980, so it was all a ball of confusion. I was not a kid, senior year at university, with decent interest in what is going on in the world, Israelis, Palestinians, Nicaragua and Sandinistas, and all of that. About Iran, I knew almost nothing, except to find it on the map and Teheran being capital. If somebody told me back then that Iran was Jewish country threatening to attack peaceful Saddam Hussein, I would have believed, no questions asked. After all, Saddam was a friend (so was shah) business partner. Who do you think built Iraq’s bunkers and military facilities? Yugoslavians built many many things in ME – Iraq, Syria mainly, and received oil as payment. See, another country not using US dollar to pay for oil. Life was good under Tito and if he told us shah was good, there was no reason not to believe. Saddam good, of course. Khomeini good or bad, of course. Luckily, Tito died in 1980, was to sick to worry about world. we tend to believe what “trusted” sources tell us.
      
      In any case, no hard feelings. We know how you feel and are with you guys. Everybody is entitled to misunderstanding here and there.
      
      Cheers, eh :-)
      - Jamshyd on November 04, 2020 · at 2:19 am EST/EDT
        
        “In any case, no hard feelings. We know how you feel and are with you guys. Everybody is entitled to misunderstanding here and there.”
        
        That’s nice of you to say, Zidar.
        
        Neither I nor Final Conflict made anything even resembling an anti-Serbian remark, nor did we bring up the Bosnian issue. Why would we? What has it got to do with US elections?
        
        You have not actually come out and bluntly stated that the Serbs did not start the conflict with the Muslims, as far as I can see, and I honestly don’t care at all. The Bosnian Muslims are nothing to me, I don’t know them from Adam, and I am not pro-Muslim, only pro-truth.
        
        But perhaps you will admit that it was the Serbs that started the conflict of 2020 against the Iranians on the Saker’s blog, and that one Epithet of the Serbs committed minor war crimes which were uncalled for, and eventually redacted from the record by the mods. :- )
        
        Look, mate, I have no quarrel with the Serbs. My only problem is with the Zionists.
    - Zidar on November 04, 2020 · at 1:52 am EST/EDT
      
      Ok, ok, relax, I ma not the enemy. “Yet again you are accusing Iranians of anti-Serb bias. As previously stated, Iran did not send special forces to fight against Serbs. Sepah sent advisors to help the Bosniaks, who were the most marginalized group of the Yugoslav peoples, and arms were provided for the defense of their homeland. Rafsanjani was not the decision maker as to whether to help the Bosniaks or not — Sepah gives the orders, not Rafsanjani. ”
      
      I am not accusing Iran of bias. I just stated the fact which I explained wrong way. I did not know that Rafsanjani doe not make decisions. Sepah is a word I heard very recently. Is that a parliament or something? Honestly, I heard of ‘mejliss’ which also I assume is some kind of assembly. Sorry for my ignorance, I’d really rather learn about things so basic, in order not to make stupid assumptions.
      
      What if Sepah was wrong in concluding that Muslims in Bosnia were most marginalized group of Yugoslav peoples? Marginalized when, where, in Yugoslavia, or in war after they decided to leave Yugoslavia? Bosnia is their homeland, no one denies that, so it is homeland of Serbs as well, and Bosnian Croats as well.. Do they think Serbs in Bosnia came from Serbia, invaded, and now they have been tormenting Muslims ever since? Muslims in Bosnia have lived together with what is now known as Bosnian Serbs for about 1000 years before ottoman Turks invaded. It just happened that some people converted to Islam, and others did not. In Serbia, very few people converted to Islam, for whatever reasons. Bosnian Serbs, Croats, Muslims are the same genes, literal brothers and they lived together on the same land for about 1500 years. Bosnia is no more Muslim or Serbian than Croat. It is the same people, same genetics, just three different religions, that is all. No one of them came from nowhere else than behind Carpathian mountains and Ukrainian steppes, after the fall of western roman empire, pushed by Mongolic tribes. That gives them about 1000 years on the same soil, in relative isolation from neighboring Slavic tribes. Neighbors in the west are Croats, and due to geography converted from paganism to catholic faith. Serbs in Serbia were closer to Byzantium, which is Greek-orthodox. Hence, Serbs, Bulgarians, Macedonians are all Orthodox. Greece is orthodox by definition, Romans never romanized Greece, Greeks converted romans into – Greeks, later called Byzantians, or Eastern Roman Empire, but Greek in spirit and culture.
      
      Again, Serbs did not came from Serbia and conquered Bosnia where Muslims peacefully lived. Croats did not come to Bosnia and conquered. Muslims from Bosnia did not invade Bosnia and conquered Serbs and Croats and ruled them 500 years. It was ottoman Turks that invaded all of them, except in Croatia, they were ruled by Austrians. Name Bosnia is geographic. Thera is a river named Bosnia, flows from about Sarajevo and to river Sava in the north. In lack of any better name for Slavic population living in Bosnia that is of muslim faith, Tito came with name Muslims (capital M is for nation, religions are written with small caps in Serbia, Croatoia or Bosnia – catholics, muslims, orthodox are religions. Croats, Serbs, Muslims are the names of nations. Funny, there is muslim population in Serbia, they call themselves Bosniaks, as if they were from Bosnia, which they are not and do not claim. They simply chose a name.. They claim to be of Turkish descent, remnants of Turks who stayed in these lands. That may be true, I don’t know. And they never called themselves Bosniaks until Yugoslavia fell apart and new “countries” were created. So, serbian muslims are now Bosniaks because there is a country named Bosnia, which is country of muslim people od slavic origin, and by two more nations, Croats and Serbs.. Serbs in Bosnia have no other land, Muslims in Bosnia have no other land, Croats in Bosnia have no other land and they have nowhere to go, Serbia is not big enough to accept all Serbs from Croatia and Bosnia, who choose to leave. That’s why they all live in Ontario, in Sudbury, Hamilton or St. Cathrins,
      
      All of them fought for right to live on that land they lived from ever before, as far as they are concerned. I dare say, bosnian Croats, Muslims, Serbs are genetically and culturally more similar between themselves than to Croats in Croatia or Serbs in Serbia. I know, I was born in Serbia proper, Belgrade, family is from Serbia proper, but spent most of my life in Bosna. Therefore I am not Bosnian Serb, I ma rather Serbian Serb in Bosnia (see how that does not make sense).
      
      Bosnian war was internal conflict supported by mostly Anglo/Zio/Western/German forces, for their own interests. It is sad that Sepah fell for “Serbs aggressors” story. I believe Sepah is set of wise people, but in this case, they made a mistake by involving in a civil war. None of the objectives was accomplished. Bosnian Muslims lost both wars, against Croats and against Serbs. USA had to help a bit by bombing Serbs. Whatever help they received from any kind of advisors, did not help. The bombs of the Great Satan did help. Wahabis are all over Bosnia today, so they were not prevented from coming.
      
      If Sepah believed that Serbs in Bosnia were aggressors, then idea of helping a side from pure altruism, in that war makes sense. However, the premise was incorrect. If they knew that people in Bosnia lived for centuries together, yet decided to support one side against another, than it is not just, even if it comes from my own father. Even so, if mistakes are made sometimes and no one can blame sons for the sins of fathers. Today’s Iran definitely can not be held in fault for something that was done 30 years ago. Sepah then, Sepah today, are not the same people, not the same views nor opinions. No blame passed to anybody.
      
      Whichever help they had, by anybody, it was all inconsequential, except American Air Force. Since all help turned to be inconsequential, it is not worth wasting energy arguing about that. Serbs are not angry or resentful with anybody. The war is over, we hope. Serbs were protecting their home as much as Muslims or Croats because all of them have the same right on that land.
      
      Genocide is strong word with specific meaning. If it is applied to smear somebody it becomes an insult, that is all. And me mentioned Iran in Bosnia was not intended to trigger such reaction.
      
      Let’s stop this madness, or ask moderator to refuse further back and forth, we are way off topic on which we all agree anyways.
      - Final Conflict on November 04, 2020 · at 11:11 am EST/EDT
        
        Sepah refers to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). Artesh refers to the general Armed Forces. Gen. Soleimani of Sepah (IRGC), who was murdered earlier this year by Trump/Pompeo, was in charge of overseas operations and
        
        The Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims, Slavic Muslims, Serbian Muslims, Serbo-Croatian Muslims, however which way you wish to call them — for simplicity I use the term “Bosniaks” to refer to Slavic Muslims of the former Yugoslavia) were indeed the most marginalized:
        
        “Bosnia’s government has long pleaded for an end to the 1991 arms embargo, which has effectively left it the only faction in the country without heavy weapons.”
        
        “Bosnian Serbs got tanks, artillery and other arms when the Yugoslav federal army withdrew, and they still get support from Serbia, the dominant state in the shrunken Yugoslav federation. Bosnian Croats are believed to have received help from neighboring Croatia, which also seceded from Yugoslavia.”
        
        Source: https://apnews.com/article/ca889f1f61e83619dca6b3f32926addb
        
        So there was no mistake on the part of Sepah in determining that the Bosniaks were marginalized. It is simply a fact.
        
        Here is another article from RFERL (some disinfo throughout, but the Fars News bits are the most important) about Soleimani’s activities in Bosnia: https://www.rferl.org/a/iranian-media-confirm-quds-force-involvement-in-foreign-conflicts/30408664.html
        
        I’ve already explained all this in prior posts. It is clear that the Yugoslav Army was dominated by Serbs followed by Croats while the Bosniaks were near the bottom. This Wikipedia article provides reliable sources for the statistics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_People%27s_Army#Military_Education_and_composition (click on the footnote links to find the exact source which you can verify yourself if you are skeptical)
        
        I can go on, but my previous posts explain the Iranian perspective and there are too many details to cover as this is all just the tip of the iceberg. To reiterate for the umpteenth time, Iran was not there to help Izetbegovic, but to help and protect the Bosniaks, who were indeed marginalized and disadvantaged on all fronts, as their own leadership was corrupt and ineffectual (as was the case in the other republics) and desperate enough to accept Saudi and other Wahhabi “humanitarian” money without thinking of the consequences of such — when the Wahhabi jihadists started popping up uninvited and for the purpose of Wahhabi imperialism, they were out of their depth. Without Iranian assistance and intervention, Bosnia would have been doomed as they were in position to handle the jihadists on their own. What remnants of Wahhabism is left in Bosnia is minimal and they are continually being rounded up by the Bosnian authorities: https://www.occrp.org/en/blog/2619-bosnias-wahhabis-are-targets-of-bihs-latest-police-action
        
        At any rate, I didn’t bring up the issue of Bosnia here on this article that has nothing do with Yugoslavia. You originally did and then one or two others joined in accusing Iran of helping Wahhabis (which is an insane allegation propagated by Zionist ideologues — this is a great insult as for Iranians and Shia, Wahhabism is a Satanic cult of death, as thoroughly evil and genocidal as Zionism) commit “genocide” against Serbs. This is an insult not only against Iran and Iranians in general, but against Gen. Soleimani.
        
        I could continue on and on, gathering recently declassified Iranian sources on this matter (if someone else hasn’t already done so in the months following Soleimani’s murder) but that’s an entire book and this is not the place.
        
        All I have done is to try my best to provide the other side of the story from Iran’s position and to inject some much needed context and reality. But ultimately, it looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree on most points. And that, as they say, is the end of that.
Swordfish on November 01, 2020 · at 5:20 pm EST/EDT

No matter if Biden or Trump would be the winner, the US will try to destabilize and take down Iran in any way.

The difference is that Trump takes a more head-on approach with his gunboat diplomacy by trying to crack Iran with extreme sanctions, while a Biden administration would try to lure Iranians into a trap by making them believe that the US wants negotiations and infiltrating Iran with AngloZionist agents.

Israel always considers Iran’s Islamic republic as a threat and they wouldn’t stop before bringing it down. Letting down their guard wouldn’t be for the benefit of Iran.
- col from OZ on November 02, 2020 · at 2:43 am EST/EDT
  
  This is why a Trump win would be good for Iran. First I see Trumps fight with China will go on. That leads to a China Iran axis which has already be signed for 400 billion dollars. So if trump does win, China will leverage and complete the deal with Iran as a way to combat Trumps sanctions etc.
S-400 on November 01, 2020 · at 6:20 pm EST/EDT

Iran must continue to defend its rights and independence and not compromise on its principles, whether Trump or Biden.

And they should expect no favors from Biden.

“Biden’s point man on Israel issues lives in Tel Aviv, works for Israeli thinktank…”

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/08/bidens-honcho-on-israel-issues-lives-in-tel-aviv-works-for-israeli-thinktank-and-should-register-as-a-foreign-agent/?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Selah
lyy on November 01, 2020 · at 7:23 pm EST/EDT

Could any Iranian explain to us the power factions in Iran?

As I understand, from Meyssan’s terminology, there’s a more imperial, Persian faction that is more pro-trade and pragmatic. This includes the current government. And there is a more Islamic faction generally considered more conservative.

Also, it would be interesting to hear words on the conspiracy theory that the death of Suleymani could have been desired by some higher-ups in Iranian elite (he was just too good). Also, why was Ahmadineyad arrested? Why is he against the deal with China?
Ali on November 01, 2020 · at 8:34 pm EST/EDT

Thank you to all the people who have expressed amazement at the contents of the present article. You are not wrong. You are spot on!

This article is an excellent exposition of the deluded and twisted thinking of Westoxicated Iranians who fancy themselves “moderates” or “reformists.”

For those who might not be familiar with Westoxicated Iranians they are the equivalents of what Malcolm X called the “house Negroes.”
J L Borges on November 01, 2020 · at 9:25 pm EST/EDT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vDx-5b7T8M

This video gives us many answers.
Iran must continue to arm itself conventionally. The deterrence does not have to be just nuclear.
Ann Watson on November 01, 2020 · at 10:00 pm EST/EDT

I think its a mistake to hope Biden will keep his word. Biden will not be making any decisions – he’s not capable and Kamaia Harris is terrible.

I agree with the conservatives in Iran – either party will be same story for Iran because ISRAEL pulls the strings in Washington DC – And I don’t say that because I think Israel is more powerful than USA – its not obviously and would die an everlasting death if USA stopped sending it $10 million a day – but sadly somehow – perhaps Rothschilds have caught and bought practically all Congress and Senate and Administration. Its got to be fixed.

I hope Iran does dump the Nuclear Deal once and for all. The whole world needs to band together against Israel in Washington – I wish Putin would act against this cancer on the planet as well.

If I were in Iran – I would vote for that military commander for sure. Of course never having lived under sanction myself I don’t know how I would be feeling – living in Iran. But I’m hoping from over here in Canada that Iran votes in that General. I’m tired of Swiss Banker Zarif and Rouhani who studied for his degree in Scotland, and was on VERY friendly terms with British elites – or at least their servants in politics.

And I think the author of this article should flush the JCPOA down the forever sewer – Why should Iran have to promise ANYTHING to Israel ??

Israel should have to sign a promise with Iran – to get rid of nuclear weapons…why pretend – why always put Iran in the seat it does not deserve to be in ?

Its like this whole frigging thing with China – China is not going to start a war with US but everyone – everyone is talking about it. Its so stupid

And I don’t agree that negotiations are easier with Biden. Get real. Biden can’t even finish (or start) a coherent sentence. And Kamala is 200% Israel and zero experience in warfare…. She certainly won’t be heading out to the front lines – she’s fine with it.
- Peter Armstrong on November 02, 2020 · at 7:36 am EST/EDT
  
  Well done, Ann. You minced no words and at the same time you managed to précis many of my own thoughts on some of the several topics you touched upon. I also agree with others on this thread about the need for more and better information about the Iranian everyman’s sentiment.
  
  I find it very believable that after 40 years of American reprisals for unseating “their” 26-year dictator on the Peacock throne that the average Iranian doesn’t trust anything American. Likewise, long before that, it was the British exploiting the country for oil and that will still be in the collective memory as well. But, as is usual in what are essentially vassal states, there is a privileged class that does very well economically by cooperating with the global power of the day. These beneficiaries strive to maintain the status quo, of course, and because they are very well connected in business and society, this enables a public narrative to be financed and maintained.
  
  After 1941, when Germany launched its offensive against Russia, there was a more strategic interest in Iran which led to meddling by both British and American intelligence agencies as they tried to contain Russian influence, and these were Russia’s supposed allies in the war with Germany. The meddling didn’t end with World War 2. When Iran dared to elect a popular nationalist leader who then nationalized Iranian oil in aid of social reforms and modernization, the British and Americans got him overthrown by coup d’état. How to win friends and influence people.
  
  I think there is a lot more nuanced knowledge that could be made available to us along these lines.
pheq on November 02, 2020 · at 5:50 am EST/EDT

What the western mass (including social) media are doing is suppressing bad news stories about Biden whereas if they are about Trump it is frontpage news.

Instead of the epitome of the profession, true investigative journalism, they have erected an information blockade.
Christian J. Chuba on November 03, 2020 · at 8:14 am EST/EDT

Instead of calling them ‘hardliners’ or ‘military men’, perhaps we should call them ‘realists’.