TEHRAN’S Friday prayer leader, Chairman of the Expediency Council, and ex-President of Iran Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, told worshippers ‘Wherever America goes, it finally understands that it should keep Iran happy.’
He added that the US was entangled in a quagmire because it wasn’t familiar with Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said that, the US was begging Iran to negotiate with it and to help it with the situation.
In a reference to US-Iran negotiations on Iraq he said if the US intends to gain anything from these negotiations it has to look into the root causes of the crisis and rectify its methods and mistakes.
He told worshippers: ‘We are witnessing the defeat of America in its plans for the greater Middle East.
‘After what befell them in the great explosions of the twin towers, the plan which they had always had for a greater Middle East was finally seriously proposed openly.
‘It was an extremely dangerous plan, which they wanted to inflict on Islamic countries.
‘They believed that they had to change all the nations of the region in their own image. This was so that they turn these nations into nations which they called democracies. In reality they were only pursuing their own agenda and interests. The same interests and agenda as their global arrogance dictated.
‘Once they saw that their plans are not achievable, many of the countries of the region which were also their allies became worried and felt a lurking danger.
‘Several countries in the region who are American allies felt threatened and were upset and so they revised their plan to be even more moderate.
‘When they became more moderate, it became apparent that the Islamic Republic was the plan’s primary target and Islamic movements which exist in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq and other places.
‘This is where all the rhetoric led to.
‘But they ended up paying a high price for the modalities they selected. They embarked on an occupation of sort, first the occupation of Afghanistan and then Iraq.
‘At the time, if you recall, I said in a Friday prayer sermon that both Afghanistan and Iraq were quagmires.
‘These are not places where one could move forward. That is the nature of a swamp first you go in up to your ankles then the more you struggle to save yourself the deeper you sink; instead of being able to move up and out you sink deeper into the depths of the bog that is what swamps are like.
‘If anyone goes into a swamp, his only way out is for a force other than himself to pull him out. America ended up in a similar situation.
‘It entered; it did not have the correct knowledge. It had knowledge neither of Afghanistan nor of Iraq and evidentially they didn’t really know Iran either. Because they started the situation in order to exert pressure on Iran and to besiege Iran and many other things they had planned to do.
‘They came and after a while instead of overwhelming Iran, they were themselves besieged and continue to be. I said previously in an interview, the reporter said to me that Iran is at the moment surrounded by the US, there is an American military presence to the south, military bases to the north and a presence to your west and east.
‘I said yes all these things are true, but their very movements are surrounded by the Islamic Republic. America will not be able to achieve its goals if the Islamic Republic does not wish it so and if America does not reform.
‘In the end it will realise that it will have to appease Iran.
‘Wherever America goes, it finally understands that it should keep Iran happy. The same applies in Palestine and Lebanon.
‘The same may even happen in other parts of the world if America continues its arrogant and monopolistic mood. And now you can see how different parties in America are behaving. The failures of Mr Bush in our region has become a slogan in the election campaign.
‘You saw that yesterday in Afghanistan a Jerga was formed. Some 700 to 800 community and tribal elders were gathered in Kabul to find a way to save Afghanistan from its calamities.
‘Afghanistan is occupied. It suffers from insecurity; and the plague of narcotic drugs is destroying the country. The only problem is that because of domestic problems in Pakistan, Mr Musharraf was not able to participate in the meeting.
‘This has somehow weakened the work of the Jerga. But it is nonetheless carrying on with its discussions.
‘Concerning Iraq, America has finally reached out to Iran. The talks have now started and we hope that the realities of Iraq and the region would be taken into consideration for the interest of humanity and the people and countries of the region, rather than arrogant and monopolistic objectives.
‘We hope that America would not involve its sense of hatred against Islam and the household of the prophet’s school of thought in the talks.
‘Otherwise, there would be no solution to the problem. Anyway, the Americans have not yet shown any positive signals. In every meeting, they have just accused Iran of interfering in Iraq’s affairs.
‘They are interfering in Iraq with 150,000 troops, but they claim that we, who are Iraq’s neighbours, have a number of agents in Iraq.
‘Does America have the right to make such false accusations against Iran?
‘They at the same time expect us not to criticise them for occupying Iraq. I believe that in such an atmosphere, the talks would not be constructive. If they really want to achieve a result, they should discuss about the root cause of the problem.
‘In order to overcome present problems, the elements causing the problems should be discussed. It would be easy to settle the problem, if they, the Americans, would be fair in their stance.
‘They resort to other excuses too. For example, they have aggrandised our nuclear issue.
‘Despite many years of inspection of various Iranian sites and superfluous questions, they have never been able to prove their claim that Iran has diverted from peaceful nuclear activity.
‘It is easy to accuse others. They may say whatever they like. They may say that they do not know certain things. Well there are many things that one may not know. If what is not known is to become the basis of accusations, then any issue may serve as a pretext to stop others doing their work.
‘The criterion should be what is known. They should say clearly where Iran has diverted. They do not say such a thing.
‘They unfortunately attempt to cause sabotage and to threaten Iran. They threaten to impose further sanctions and they carry out extensive propaganda against Iran.
‘Since the moment we accepted a responsibility in the state, we have never been immune of such threats. The majority of you have witnessed this. From the very first day, we faced armed riots which were stirred by the American embassy; and this issue was revealed later on.
‘There was a coup attempt. Our Tabas was under attack. However, the Americans wanted to rescue their fellow countrymen. They then explicitly said that they will start a war against us and they did do. And at the end of the war, they entered a war against us. When have we ever been immune of their threats?
‘At any rate, this situation will come to an end and all of those who fuelled the flames of war will not achieve anything.
‘We stress and would like to advise them to choose the right approach.
‘Negotiations are the best solution. Iran is ready for negotiations at any level.
‘They should abandon their unacceptable and humiliating preconditions. Let’s sit down and negotiate without any preconditions.
‘This is the best solution to the nuclear issue and other issues in which we can help each other. During negotiations we can show them ways so that they don’t cause further chaos in the tranquil, important and sensitive Middle East region because of their hegemonistic objectives.
‘This has to be the outcome because otherwise the smoke caused by this situation will go into the eyes of many other countries, especially the hegemonistic and industrial countries.’
