Just a cheerful, charming heads-up from our new Iranian friends -- who'd like to remind the world that if the "invading and criminal" United States were to initiate a war, we'd "emerge humiliated" from the ordeal:
Iran's supreme leader has released an ISIS-style YouTube propaganda video, declaring that his country would defeat the United States if a war breaks out. The video from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, entitled "If any war happens...," begins with President Obama stating that the U.S. could "knock out [Iran's] military" quickly if it chose to do so. Khamenei then says "our predecessors used to call such statements 'boasting among strangers.'" We neither welcome nor begin any war,” he continues, as the video shows images of the Iranian military, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and an animation of an Iranian missile striking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. “They must know that should any war break out, one will emerge humiliated out of it. [It] will be invading and criminal America,” he concludes over an image of U.S. troops carrying a flag-draped coffin.
They wouldn't dream of starting a war, you see, but they'd crush us if came to that. Of course, Iran has been waging proxy wars across the region for years, actively arming, funding and collaborating with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah -- and even Al Qaeda. Iran is the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world. The regime is also ghoulishly familiar with coffins draped in American flags; Iranian bombs killed approximately 500 US soldiers during the Iraq war, on which the propaganda video above dwells for several seconds. The clip was released just says after Ayatollah Khamenei tweeted that God willing, Israel will cease to exist within the next 25 years. Perversely, Iran's president followed-up on Khamenei's message with a Rosh Hashana greeting to the world's Jews:
As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/tmaf84x7UR
— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 4, 2013Offering words of blessing to Jews as his regime actively kills Jews and seeks the destruction of the world's lone Jewish state. It's vileness dressed up as a gesture of goodwill. Back to the saber-rattling video: One could make a strong case that the terms of the nuclear agreement make war more likely in the long run, if the United States and our allies are actually serious about preventing the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons. By President Obama's own admission, the deal's Western-imposed restrictions begin to automatically phase out after 10-to-15 years, leaving Iran with a vast, internationally-approved, virtually-intact nuclear program and infrastructure -- replete with a dramatically-reduced "breakout" time horizon, thanks to advanced technologies and centrifuges they're permitted to develop under the accord. Obama has excoriated domestic critics of the agreement as making "common cause" with 'death-to-America' Iranian zealots, and now pronounces himself pleased with the "strong support" his unilateral deal has garnered. This "strong support" entails the opposition of more than 60 percent of Congress based on recent votes (327 out of 531 cast), and a strong majority of the American public. A new CNN poll shows 59 percent of voters disapproving of Obama's handling of Iran, with six in ten calling it "extremely" or "very" likely that Iran will cheat. Perhaps because it's what they do. On a positive note, it appears as though one major concern about Iran's self-inspection scenario at Parchin as part of a (still) secret IAEA side deal has been resolved to some extent. But huge gaps remain in the deal's inspections requirements. I'll leave you with Amb. John Bolton's analysis of where opponents of the pact should go from here, starting with an acknowledgment that it is mechanically impossible to kill the agreement in the immediate future.