US acting Navy secretary: Iran ‘blew the hell out of’ US base in Bahrain

Iran FM: ‘The American people deserve better than footing the bill for Israel’s wars’

TEHRAN — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed candid statements from top US Navy leadership acknowledging the extensive destruction at the American 5th Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, framing the damage as definitive proof of the impact of Iran’s retaliatory operations.  

"We appreciate the candor of Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao," Araghchi said on X. "Our powerful Armed Forces did indeed 'blow the hell out of the 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain,' as well as other bases supporting US aggression. The American people deserve better than footing the bill for Israel’s wars."  

Araghchi's remarks followed rare public admissions from senior Pentagon officials regarding the aftermath of Iranian missile and drone strikes that targeted regional US installations after the hostilities initiated on February 28.  

Speaking in an interview with The Epoch Times on September 9, acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao offered a blunt assessment of the state of Naval Support Activity (NSA) Bahrain, stating, "They blew the hell out of Bahrain." Cao admitted that Iran’s strikes severely compromised primary logistical networks and added that a dedicated task force is currently evaluating whether the US can repair or sustain its presence at the facility.  

This assessment aligns with statements made during an August 31 Navy town hall, where Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle informed sailors displaced from the facility that the US military does not plan to return to the NSA Bahrain base "anytime soon."  

Iran’s targeted strikes following the February 28 escalations have fundamentally disrupted US military logistics across the region. The destruction at NSA Bahrain left long-deployed American naval assets, including the carrier strike group USS Abraham Lincoln, without their primary forward support hub. 

Cao explicitly noted that the devastation left the carrier crew with "no place for them to pull in," forcing the Pentagon to reroute supply lines to distant bases like Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.  This logistical paralysis has generated acute operational strains, extended combat deployments, and compromised supply chains for US personnel throughout the Persian Gulf. 

Foreign military analysts note that the loss of forward docking and repair capabilities in Bahrain severely limits the operational readiness of American warships operating in contested waters. 

The sustained effectiveness of these defensive operations has forced a broad reassessment of Washington's forward military presence across West Asia. Former CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus recently observed that traditional foreign outposts in the region are "no longer viable" due to Iran's advanced long-range missile and drone capabilities that hold fixed military infrastructure directly at risk. 

Similarly, defense consultants have pointed out that keeping troops stationed at stationary Persian Gulf bases transforms them into continuous targets. The physical destruction of NSA Bahrain—and the resulting displacement of US naval command structures—marks a fundamental shift in the geopolitical balance of the Persian Gulf. By proving that stationary military hubs can be neutralized during major hostilities, Iran's retaliatory strikes have dismantled the assumption that foreign forces can project power in West Asia without facing immediate, severe structural vulnerabilities. As Washington hesitates to rebuild its damaged infrastructure, Tehran's deterrence strategy has effectively redefined the operational landscape for foreign forces in the region. 

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• U.S.
• Bahrain
• Iran

Collective grief: How nations mourn the death of a Leader Doaa Latif

Doaa Latif Source: Al Mayadeen English

From the psychology of grief to the role of rituals, values, and collective memory, this piece examines how societies carry loss forward; not by forgetting, but by preserving the ideals they believe define them.

Some deaths bury a person. Others alter the emotional landscape of an entire nation.

History is marked by such events: the assassination of a politician, the execution of a revolutionary, the killing of a commander, the loss of a scholar or leader who stood unwavering as the moral voice of a people. The impact of such deaths rarely remains confined to the grief of families alone. Instead, it is absorbed into the collective consciousness of a society, becoming a moment that divides history into a before and an after.

Political analysts often ask what happens next. Who assumes leadership? How will power shift? Will the movement continue?

Psychology, on the other hand, asks a different question. What happens to the people?

Collective grief

When a leader comes to embody a people’s moral values and convictions, namely their longing for justice, their resilience through suffering, and their refusal to surrender, their death is experienced as far more than the loss of an individual. It can feel as though a part of the community’s identity has been lost too.

This is what psychologists describe as collective grief: the shared emotional response of a community to a loss that reaches beyond personal relationships. Unlike personal grief, collective grief is rooted not only in affection but in shared identity. People mourn someone they may never have met because they are grieving what that person represents.

Sociologist Maurice Halbwachs argued that memory is never entirely individual. Communities remember together. Stories, rituals, and shared experiences become the threads from which collective identity is woven. The death of a symbolic leader, therefore, becomes more than a historical event; it becomes part of the narrative of an entire people.

How nations grieve

For decades, popular understanding of grief has been shaped by the five stages proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Yet contemporary research presents a more complex picture. Grief is not a series of orderly steps towards closure. It is fluid, deeply personal, and continually reshaped by experience.

Collective grief is shaped not only by memory but also by unfolding events. When the circumstances surrounding a leader’s death remain part of an ongoing conflict, grief often remains unresolved. What psychologists increasingly describe is not grief that refuses to heal, but grief that continues to acquire new meanings as history itself continues to unfold.

So, when does a nation reach acceptance?

Rethinking acceptance

This invites a different understanding of acceptance. Acceptance, in modern grief psychology, does not mean approval, forgetting, or emotional detachment. Modern bereavement research instead suggests that meaning is not found by leaving loss behind, but by integrating it into a renewed sense of purpose. People move forward while carrying their grief with them. Societies grieve in much the same way.

History is filled with examples of governments and empires that believed removing a leader would extinguish a movement. Yet history often records the opposite outcome. When a leader has become inseparable from ideals such as justice, dignity, or freedom, death can transform an individual into a lasting moral symbol. This is why collective grief is never simply about remembering the dead, but rather deciding what values will remain alive.

Grief reaffirms identity

The sociologist Émile Durkheim observed that societies are held together not only by institutions but also by shared beliefs and collective rituals. Public mourning is one such ritual. Its purpose is not merely to express sorrow, but to reaffirm belonging. In moments of profound loss, communities are not only asking whom they have lost. They are also rediscovering who they are.

Grief, therefore, becomes more than an emotional response.

It is also an act of identity.

This may explain why periods of collective mourning are so often accompanied by renewed moral conviction. Communities often emerge from profound loss with an intensified commitment to the principles they believe their leader embodied. The leader’s voice falls silent, but the values associated with that leader are repeated in conversations, taught to children, and woven into the moral imagination of future generations.

For many, faith deepens this process. The belief that sacrifice is never meaningless offers a framework through which suffering can be understood without denying its pain. It does not erase grief; it gives grief direction.

When grief finds purpose

While political history often focuses on those who held power, social history reminds us that ordinary people ultimately shape nations. Leaders may inspire, but it is communities that decide whether the values associated with those leaders will endure.

Collective grief eventually changes its character. At first, it is expressed in mourning. Over time, it begins to shape how a society understands itself and the values it chooses to preserve. Memory becomes responsibility, and the principles once carried by one person become the shared inheritance of many.

In that quiet transformation lies the resilience of nations.

For while a life may come to an end, the ideals that gave it meaning can continue to shape the lives of a people.

In the end, the resilience of a nation is measured not only by what it survives, but by what it chooses to preserve. Long after speeches have faded and headlines have been forgotten, it is the values carried quietly by ordinary people that determine whether a leader’s legacy remains a chapter in history or continues to shape the nation’s future.

Iranian strikes force UAE to dismantle plans for its AI mega-campus

 By staff writer

TEHRAN — The United Arab Emirates is quietly dismantling its blueprint for a 5-gigawatt artificial intelligence project, abandoning plans for a centralized campus in Abu Dhabi in favor of a dispersed network of hardened facilities.

Iranian missile and drone operations have permanently altered the security calculus for regional autocracies hosting American forces.

Originally envisioned as a 10-square-mile computing hub built in partnership with U.S. tech firms, the project is undergoing a total strategic redesign.

According to a Reuters report on September 11, 2026, Emirati officials are now calculating the financial burden of moving sensitive infrastructure underground into the rugged mountain ranges of Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah, equipping dispersed sites with blast-resistant concrete and electronic jamming apparatus.

Retaliation shatters the safe haven myth

The sudden overhaul follows retaliatory strikes by Iranian forces targeting infrastructure linked to foreign military presence across the region.

In March, drone strikes damaged two Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE alongside a major facility in Bahrain, triggering prolonged disruptions across regional cloud networks and banking systems.

The impact demonstrated how quickly commercial digital infrastructure collapses when tied to Western military footprint.

Pressure intensified in April when Iran’s armed forces released targeting footage explicitly identifying Stargate UAE, the project’s $30 billion first phase.

The video confirmed the exact coordinates of the site adjacent to Al Dhafra Air Base, an enclave housing U.S. troops that has been targeted repeatedly since the wider war began in February.

The cost of subservience

The flagship project was built on a geopolitical bargain. Spearheaded by G42, an entity controlled by Emirati national security adviser Tahnoun bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi agreed to sever technological ties with China in exchange for advanced Nvidia microprocessors and infrastructure deals with American corporations such as OpenAI, Oracle, and Cisco.

By embedding critical digital infrastructure next to active launchpads for U.S. military operations, Abu Dhabi tied its economic future directly to Washington’s regional warfare.

When the U.S. and Israel launched their campaign of aggression against Iran, the UAE’s decision to host and abet hostile forces, provide basing and logistics for operations against Iran, and make itself complicit in Washington’s anti-Iran bloc transformed its high-tech megaprojects into vulnerable targets.

Scattered infrastructure and mounting financial costs

Emirati planners are now scrambling to break the 5-gigawatt masterplan into fragmented sites across multiple emirates.

Workloads handling military and government data will be buried inside disused mines and subterranean mountain vaults.

Planners are also integrating localized missile interceptors, blast walls, and redundant power networks to survive potential strikes.

These physical modifications carry immense financial and logistical burdens. Splitting a unified mega-campus into isolated, blast-proof facilities multiplies energy consumption, physical security perimeters, and specialized cooling requirements at every single site.

While G42 and its Western partners claim the build proceeds as planned, the physical reality tells a different story.

Abu Dhabi traded its national sovereignty for American hardware and military promises, only to discover that no Western air defense shield can protect infrastructure erected in the shadow of U.S. military bases.

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• UAE
• Iran-UAE
• Iranian missile strikes
• Iranian drones
• artificial intelligence
• Tahnoon bin Zayed

Washington sanctions regime reaches its breaking point

Samuel Geddes Source: Al Mayadeen English

Trump’s escalating sanctions campaign against Iran risks backfiring, weakening US economic leverage and accelerating a global shift away from the dollar-centered financial system.

Trump’s desperate bid to crush Iran’s economy without military escalation places the US’ sanctions regime against Iran, Russia, China and all its other adversaries at existential risk.

So far, 2026 has been the most sobering year in living memory for the American self-image. Having at long last achieved the war against Tehran that has been sought since 1979, the Washington establishment is confronted not with the Islamic Republic’s collapse but its solidification.

Far from regaining its unquestioned dominion over the Persian Gulf region, it must now accept perpetual management by Tehran of the most critical waterway on Earth, or else face a global economic calamity. Instead of weakening Iranian leverage, the US-Israeli aggression has magnified it exponentially, needlessly handing it a level of global power and influence undreamt of in the more than five centuries of the Western world’s dominance.

As the administration flails ahead of the midterms and the imminent exhaustion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which cushioned the true magnitude of the energy shock, it is soon to witness yet another previously unchallenged instrument of its power vaporize alongside its dwindling munitions stocks. That instrument is its economic sanctions policy.

This week ushered in the so-called "Operation Economic Outcast", through which Washington hopes to throttle every avenue of economic contact between Iran and the outside world. Announced by the hapless Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, along with his bemusement at the rising price of oil in response to the US’ actions, is also contending with the failure of the naval blockade of Iran’s southern coast, which has still not caused either Tehran’s collapse or capitulation. By switching back to tactics of blunt economic coercion, the Trump administration signaled an unprecedented escalation in the intensity of its secondary sanctions policy, namely that any company or state engaging in economic activity of any kind with Iran will share in its exclusion from the economic and financial system underpinned by the US dollar.

This threat, in addition to being levelled against regional and small-to-medium-sized economic partners of the Islamic Republic, is also explicitly aimed at China and Russia. In its desperation to force Iranian submission, Washington is escalating the war to the level of global economic blackmail, including against its only near-peer economy and potential challenger. Even Bessent, by his own admission, acknowledged that actual imposition of such sanctions would "blow up" the global financial system.

In addition to threatening every state that engages in any way with the Iranian economy, the Trump administration has, at "Israel’s" encouragement, also taken to the idea of imposing a total land blockade as well. This would require strong-arming systemically important regional actors such as Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan into sacrificing their own natural economic ties with their neighbor, to achieve the objectives of the very foreign power that has thrown their economic present and future into chaos.

Before the so-called “Economic D-Day” was even launched, Beijing called Trump and Bessent’s bluffs, assuring that any US sanctions against entities facilitating Chinese-Iranian exchange would trigger "all necessary measures" in response. The effects of increasing Chinese-US decoupling, the accumulating poison of the US tariff war against the rest of the world and now the apparent collapse of the North American economic bloc (formerly NAFTA), leave Washington in no position to incur the true costs of such retaliation, let alone the simultaneous countersanctions from the likes of Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan and any other country that depends more on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz than on trade with the US.

Neither are the Iranians anywhere near as bereft of economic weapons of their own, certainly not in comparison to the first Trump administration’s economic strangulation. Tehran has correctly greeted the US economic campaign as the desperate gamble that it is- and met it with an ultimatum of its own: that any participating state in this economic siege will be treated as an enemy.

Trump may believe that the US’ relative lesser exposure to the Strait gives him some sort of leverage. In fact, for the majority of states in the world whose economies run in whole or part due to the 20 percent of oil and natural gas, 30 percent of industrial helium, 40 percent of sulfur and 50 percent of fertilizer inputs that annually transit Hormuz, this reality gives them far more reason to accommodate the Islamic Republic than to join Washington and Tel-Aviv’s attempts to bring it to its knees.

This stunning level of economic hubris, if acted upon, will either fail and demonstrate the economic limits of US power along with those of its military, or it will succeed and split the globe into separate economic world-systems. Like almost every gambit of this unhinged presidency, success would be more damaging than failure. Washington will have so antagonized even its closest partners that whatever remains of the “global economy” centered around the Dollar will be very much less than “global” in its scope, compared to the parallel world economy its hostility will have birthed through sheer obstinate stupidity.

Baqaei: IAEA risks becoming instrument for justifying aggression against Iran

TEHRAN- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has sharply criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Rafael Grossi, accusing them of undermining the agency’s independence and turning its technical assessments into a basis for political pressure and justification for military action against Iran.

In a post on X, Baqaei said the IAEA Director General had transformed an institution whose authority was founded on “technical expertise, impartiality, and independence” into a link in a chain connecting technical reporting to political justification and, ultimately, war.

His remarks came shortly after the IAEA Board of Governors voted to refer Iran’s nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council over alleged non-compliance with its safeguards' obligations.

The resolution, introduced by the United States, Britain, France and Germany, was adopted on September 9 by 23 votes in favor, three against and eight abstentions. Russia, China and Niger voted against the measure. 

Baqaei argued that the development illustrated the growing politicization of an institution that is supposed to operate as an impartial technical body.

“When IAEA reports become raw material for threat narratives and for the construction of a political and legal case against a country,” he wrote, “the line between technical oversight and laying the groundwork for military aggression becomes dangerously blurred.”

The Iranian spokesman said the issue went beyond reputational damage to the agency or its director general, warning that the IAEA’s most valuable asset—its credibility as an impartial and independent authority—was being squandered.

“Once that credibility is subordinated to political agendas,” Baqaei said, “the Agency risks becoming an instrument for rationalizing and facilitating aggression.”

He described such a development as a “profound institutional failure,” arguing that the agency had effectively become involved in the political preparation of an unlawful war.

Baqaei further accused the IAEA of contributing to a political process serving the interests and ambitions of a “genocidal regime,” a reference to Israel, which Iran has repeatedly accused of obstructing efforts to establish a West Asia free of weapons of mass destruction.

“An institution entrusted with contributing to international peace and security should never become part of the machinery used to manufacture a pretext for war,” he said.

The Iranian spokesman also rejected the notion that responsibility for aggression and war crimes should be confined solely to those who order or physically carry out military attacks. In his view, accountability must also encompass actors whose actions knowingly contribute to the political, legal or evidentiary foundations used to justify military action.

He warned that those who present disputed assessments as authoritative grounds for coercive measures cannot simply distance themselves from the consequences of such actions.

Baqaei’s comments came amid a sharp escalation in the dispute between Iran and the IAEA following the Board of Governors’ latest resolution. Iran has rejected the resolution as politically motivated and without a sound legal basis, while maintaining that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Western governments, meanwhile, claim that Iran has failed to provide the agency with sufficient access and information concerning its nuclear activities.

The latest vote has added a new layer to an already deeply strained relationship between Tehran and the UN nuclear watchdog, with Iran warning that the politicization of the IAEA could ultimately undermine confidence in the international nuclear safeguards system itself.

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• Esmaeil Baqaei
• IAEA
• Iran

China, Russia reject pressure on Iran as nuclear dispute returns to UNSC

TEHRAN- China and Russia have jointly rejected renewed Western pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, challenging the legal and political basis of efforts to revive sanctions and bring the Iranian nuclear issue back under the scrutiny of the United Nations Security Council.

The positions were voiced during a Security Council meeting on Iran’s nuclear program on September 10, a day after the IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution introduced by the United States, Britain, France and Germany that referred Iran’s nuclear file to the Security Council over 'alleged non-compliance' with its safeguards' obligations.

The Security Council agreed to place the Iranian nuclear issue on its agenda by a vote of 11 in favor, with China and Russia voting against and two members abstaining.  China and Russia, however, used the meeting to reaffirm their opposition to the reimposition of sanctions against Iran and to the so-called snapback mechanism.

China and Russia reject snapback

According to Al Jazeera, China’s representative at the meeting warned that insisting on restoring sanctions against Iran could endanger international peace and security.

The Chinese envoy said Beijing supported Russia’s statement and maintained that the snapback mechanism had expired.

“We believe that the snapback has come to an end, and we are witnessing the sunset of the JCPOA,” he said, expressing regret that some Security Council members continued to insist on the issue.

He warned that such measures could not only complicate relations among UN members and within the Security Council but could also undermine international peace and security.

Russia’s representative likewise reiterated Moscow’s opposition to resolutions targeting Iran and said the snapback mechanism had expired.

The Russian envoy said Moscow supported China’s position on the issue, again stressing that the mechanism had reached its end and that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was entering its “sunset.”

The coordinated positions of Beijing and Moscow place them at odds with the United States and the three European parties to the JCPOA — Britain, France and Germany — which have sought to intensify international pressure on Iran over its peaceful nuclear activities.

Iran challenges Security Council proceedings

Iran, for its part, has rejected the renewed proceedings as legally and politically unfounded.

Gholamhossein Darzi, Iran’s ambassador and chargé d’affaires to the United Nations, said the Security Council meeting on Iran’s nuclear file constituted an abuse of the Council’s procedures and authority.

In a letter circulated to the Council president Darzi said Iran categorically rejected “unfounded allegations and distortions” concerning its peaceful nuclear program.

He argued that UN Security Council Resolution 2231 expired on October 18, 2025, and that all nuclear-related provisions, measures and restrictions associated with the resolution were therefore terminated.

Darzi also disputed the legal basis for the European powers’ attempt to invoke the snapback mechanism, arguing that the E3 had failed to meet their own obligations under both the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 and therefore lacked the legal standing to activate the mechanism.

Iran’s envoy further attributed the current nuclear dispute to 'unlawful US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s peaceful and safeguarded nuclear facilities.'

He argued that attacks against safeguarded nuclear sites had seriously undermined confidence in the international safeguards system and the broader nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Darzi maintained that the renewed allegations against Iran were political rather than technical, pointing to Iran’s membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1970 and its long-standing engagement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

He said Iran had been subject to extensive IAEA monitoring for nearly 25 years and stressed that the agency had reported no diversion of nuclear material in Iran.

The Iranian envoy called on the IAEA to remain impartial, professional, independent and non-political, arguing that political pressure could not replace an objective assessment of safeguards obligations.

Iran denounces IAEA resolution

Darzi also sharply criticized the IAEA Board of Governors’ resolution adopted on September 9, describing it as a politically driven measure backed by the United States and the E3.

The resolution was adopted by 23 votes in favor, three against and eight abstentions. Russia, China and Niger voted against it.

The measure was introduced by the United States, Britain, France and Germany and referred Iran’s nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council over alleged non-compliance with its safeguards obligations.

Iran has rejected the resolution, arguing that it fails to meet the requirements of objectivity and impartiality and does not address the attacks on its safeguarded nuclear facilities.

Darzi said the IAEA Board’s latest action, like previous resolutions, was silent on 'unlawful attacks' by the United States and Israel against its nuclear installations.

He warned that Security Council procedures should not be used to advance politically motivated or unsubstantiated allegations against UN member states or to provide political cover for 'unlawful acts.'

Iran has therefore called on the Security Council to adhere strictly to the UN Charter and international law and to reject attempts to politicize its procedures and mechanisms.

The dispute now moves into a more consequential diplomatic phase, with Iran rejecting the legal basis of the renewed Security Council proceedings, China and Russia opposing the restoration of sanctions and the snapback mechanism, and the United States and the E3 pressing ahead with efforts to place Iran’s nuclear activities back at the center of the Council’s agenda.

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• China
• Russia
• UNSC
• Iran
• snap-back
• IAEA

A western humanist’s memory of Sayyed Ali Khamenei

Tim Anderson Source: Al Mayadeen English

A reflection on Sayyed Ali Khamenei’s legacy, leadership, values, and role in shaping Iran’s development and regional position.

This is a commentary from a non-Muslim, Western social humanist perspective on the great Iranian leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei. He is loved and mourned not just by Iranians, not just by Muslims, but by many other people.

I want to talk about five areas that I remember of him and his legacy. First was his adherence to firm principles, Islamic values, but also humanist values, which we could understand across cultures. During his long presidency and his long time as supreme leader, he made sure that the country invested in the Iranian people, invested in their human resources. And that accounts for the greater advances in human development that are registered by the UNDP. For example, particularly in education and health, from the 1980s onwards, after a period of very weak development under the puppet monarchy, which was really a parasite regime. So investing in the Iranian people was really a huge achievement on the part of the Islamic Republic. 

Second was the mature leadership. When Sayyed Khamenei came to be the leader, he had the experience of being an elected president during wartime. So the lessons of that time gave him a perspective on top of his religious training. In turn, he provided consistent guidance and mentoring; he mentored many great commanders, like Qassem Soleimani, like Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and that leadership was recognised by many other great humanists in the world, like Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, for example. They recognised his legacy and his role as a mentor and as a trainer of other commanders.

Sayyed Khamenei led and developed regional solidarity.  Iran is remarkable for its unwavering support for the Palestinian struggle, which was initiated by the mentor and founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the formation of an ‘Axis of Resistance’ under Sayyed Khamenei. All of the independent peoples and states of the region were drawn into that gradually, to fight the common enemy of the region, but really the common enemy of humanity, that of Imperialism and Zionism.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged Sayyed Khamenei’s mentoring role in the Hezbollah victory over the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006. And it was Sayyed Khamenei to whom Commander Qassem Soleimani reported in late 2017 on the historic defeat of ISIS terrorists in all the major cities and towns of the region.

Fourth was Sayyed Khamenei’s steadfast defense of his nation, that era of strategic patience, which lasted for a very long period of time, in which Iran withheld its retaliation or responses to aggressions by the Israelis, so the country could build up its capacity to face its gravest test, a direct US war of aggression. That began earlier this year and, thanks to the strategy developed by the martyred leader, Iran prevailed. His death and funeral were events in themselves that marked the rise of Iran as a great power and flagged the strategic depth of the nation.

I have heard an honest, liberal Iranian academic say that if the country had given in to the demands of some of the liberal reformers for creating some sort of liberal democracy in Iran, it would have been destroyed in that war. It would have turned into a weak failed state, like that of my own country, where all natural resources have been privatised, the economy is handed over to an Anglo-American financial oligarchy, and Iran would have joined the ranks of slave regimes, producing weapons for the Israelis to pursue their dream of a Greater "Israel". That would be some of the dreadful consequences of giving up on Iran’s principles and control of its own development.

Finally, the memory of Sayyed Ali Khamenei is that of a loving father and grandfather who presented an example of care, insight, love, and sacrifice, to his last day. We know the final sacrifice and how it came about. He was not prepared to live in some sort of hiding, which held him apart from the people of Iran. If they had no shelter from the merciless Zionist bombing, neither would he.

So those are some of the memories this non-Muslim westerner has of Sayyed Ali Khamenei. His voice and his lessons are still with us, but we really miss him. Damn those evil creatures who murdered him and his family.