Jordan Following US Dictates on Iran to Get Brownie Points

By

 Ali Mousavi Khalkhali

Jordan King Abdullah II (right) and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (left)

Fearful of US National Security Advisor John Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Jordan is acting against Iran to get brownie points.

The Arab countries are trying to reduce tensions in the region and have entered the phase of direct talks with Iran, and even a country like the United Arab Emirates that had adopted the policy of hostility has shifted its attitude and has entered the course of interaction. Meanwhile, Jordan is still sticking to another path and refuses to exercise interaction with Iran, although it is believed to be deeply upset at the US and Israel.

Jordan is a small country with very tough economic conditions that tries to overcome its economic crises with financial assistance from the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. However, its policy has met with little success so far. Jordan’s economy is suffering from two major problems, inflation and fuel — the two factors that have always put pressure on the Jordanian governments, have triggered occasional social or economic protests against the governments, and have brought them down. Economy is the Jordanian government’s Achilles’ heel. This has encouraged different countries, particularly the US, to pressurize Jordan’s government to fulfill their own interests.

Amman has so far stood idly by in the face of the US pressures, to the extent that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is in charge of the so-called “deal of the century” case, visit Amman, humiliate Jordanians, give orders, and force Jordan to follow their dictates. The Jordanian officials maintain that those three American officials are very tough and stern, and that they have no choice but to obey their orders, because disobedience will cause a lot of problems given the country’s fragile economy.

Jordan is dissatisfied with the deal of century and is well aware that the initiative will damage its interests and may even pose a serious threat to its territorial integrity, but is supporting the plan reluctantly. Jordan attended the Manama meeting on the deal of century only under pressure from the United States and approved the half-baked and peculiar American and Israeli plans.

Such passiveness and submission has made Jordan side with the US over Iran’s case. Informed sources reveal that Jordan has turned into a center for anti-Iranian activities, in a way that the hostile and anti-Revolutionary groups such as the Muhajedhin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) and PJAK are there, but the Jordanian government is not preventing any of those hostile measures. Since the very first day after the overthrow of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, many remaining members of Iraq’s Ba’ath Party fled to Jordan and are still active there. During the fall of Mosul, Jordan had become a think tank for the Ba’athist masterminds of ISIS. Even amid the Syrian crisis, Jordan was an operations room for the American and Saudi measures against Bashar al-Assad’s government. Several big hostile terrorist operations against Syria and Assad’s government have been orchestrated from inside Jordan, nearly all of which ended in failure. Even at present, the Ba’athists are in contact with the MKO members through Jordan, but the Amman government has given a muted response to such connections. Moreover, the MKO members make contacts with Israelis via Jordan’s soil, while the intelligence agency of Jordan prepares the ground for those contacts in some cases.

There are also reports that Jordan, under the US pressure, plans to create a think tank against Iran. One of the measures that Jordan has taken under this policy has been its attempt to reach out to Iraq with the purpose of keeping Iraq away from Iran. Americans have urged Jordan to satisfy Iraq’s economic demands as much as possible to help it reduce economic dependence on Iran. The US has put heavy pressures on both Amman and Baghdad to achieve that objective. In such a hostile approach, Israelis play a role, too.

Under pressure from the US, Jordan even rejects an envoy from Iran and refuses to do anything for normalization of ties with Tehran. Amman has adopted such an approach while Iran has not taken any measure against Jordan and has never taken a retaliatory action for the big venue Jordan has provided for the anti-Iranian elements.

Amman needs to realize that keeping up the hostile policies against Iran, even if adopted reluctantly, will be ultimately detrimental to itself.

With blind obedience, Amman is simply following orders from Bolton, Pompeo and Kushner, and has turned a blind eye to the fact that unquestioning obedience to American orders could finally backfire against Jordan itself. The public opinion and history have not still forgotten the Black Friday in Jordan, in which the Americans had a direct role and were acting against Amman, while they pretended to be a friend of the Jordanian government.

MKO and the bankrupt US policy on Iran

The fact that a group as dubious as the MKO figures so prominently in the Trump administration’s policy on Iran demonstrates the bankruptcy of that policy, says Paul R. Pillar – a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of “Why America Misunderstands the World”, in his article titled: “MKO and the Bankrupt US Policy on Iran”.

Among the many indicators of misdirection in the Donald Trump administration’s policy toward Iran, one of the clearest is the fondness for the cult-cum-terrorist group known as the MKO – and scoffed by all Iranians as ‘hypocrites’ for its treason against the Islamic Republic and armed collaboration with Saddam’s Ba’th minority regime during the 8-year imposed on Iran by the US.

Among this dubious group’s most prominent cheerleaders are the US national security advisor, John Bolton, and Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, both having been featured speakers at its rallies. They and other shills for the MKO refer to the group as if it represented what it decidedly is not: an alternative to the current Iranian political system.

Journalist Arron Merat, an experienced Iran-watcher who formerly was the Economist’s Tehran correspondent, has just published a 6,600-word article about the MKO in the Guardian. The piece is well worth reading as it forms a richly informed and up-to-date portrait that leaves no doubt about the nature of the group and the ghastly inappropriateness of using the MKO in any way as a vehicle for US policy in the region.

The MKO originated as a student movement that opposed the Shah and spouted an ideology that weirdly allied with Marxism. Before the Islamic Revolution, its terrorist operations targeted businesses and it reportedly killed six American citizens in addition to its far more numerous Iranian victims.

The MKO tried to exploit the conditions in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, feigning support for the Islamic Republic, but practically opposing its policies. Among other things, following the Algiers Accord between Iran and the US, for the conditional release of the American spies caught red-handed at the so-called US embassy in Tehran when the revolutionary students took it over, the MKO opposed this deal. The group continued its terrorism, targeting both officials and ordinary citizens of Iran.

With the eight-year Iraqi War already underway, the MKO threw in its lot with Saddam. The Iraqi dictator gave the group weapons, cash, and a compound called Camp Ashraf in return for its continuing attacks inside Iran as well as helping Saddam suppress his own domestic opponents. Iranians understandably viewed this phase in the MKO’s history as an unforgivable act of treason, and whatever support the group previously had in Iran was erased.

Merat’s article provides details of the cult-like aspects of how the MKO has functioned, earlier at Camp Ashraf and more recently, after the group had to leave Iraq, at a compound in Albania. As cult leaders, the husband-and-wife duo of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi have resembled the likes of Jim Jones and Shoko Asahara. Families have been broken up, married couples told to divorce, and women threatened with punishment if they did not “marry” Massoud and endure his sexual abuse. (Massoud dropped out of sight after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and it is not known whether he is dead or alive. Maryam continues as the public face of the group.) Stomach-turning details continue to emerge from the MKO’s current location in Albania, including stories of forced hysterectomies and would-be escapees subjected to solitary confinement. The former head of Albanian military intelligence says that MKO members live in the group’s current compound as “hostages” amid “extraordinary psychological violence and threats of murder.”

The MKO’s efforts over the past two decades to convey a benign public image completely at odds with this internal reality, and to pose as a force for democracy in Iran, have depended on buying the public endorsements of well-known public figures. This has required money—lots of it. Five-figure speaking fees have flowed freely. Public disclosure forms indicate Bolton received $40,000 for a single appearance at an MKO event in Paris last year, and Merat gives an estimate of $180,000 as the total that Bolton has received for his multiple appearances on behalf of the group.

In addition to the generous big-name fees, lobbying for the MKO has apparently included other well-financed techniques. The crowd at the Paris event this year, for example, was supplemented by bussing in young people from Eastern Europe who enjoyed a free weekend in Paris. The group used the same rent-a-crowd technique for a demonstration outside the US State Department when the MKO was ramping up its lobbying a few years ago to be delisted as a foreign terrorist organization. Some of the participants in that event were recruited at a homeless shelter in New York; they admitted knowing very little about the MKO but appreciated the free meals they were given for attending.

Where the money is coming from is still somewhat of a mystery. But some clues point to regional regimes that are hostile to Iran as the most likely source – especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Two further observations flow from this surprisingly successful but wholly unjustified remaking of the MKO’s image. One concerns how some famous—and perhaps supposedly respectable people—evidently have been willing to prostitute themselves to get in on those fat speaking fees. A wide range of political figures have played the game, from Howard Dean on the left to Bolton and many others on the right. Some of the players may have had little more understanding of the MKO when they got involved than did the guys from the homeless shelter in New York.

Ed Rendell, a former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, freely admitted that he knew little about the group when he accepted an invitation to speak at an event the MKO staged at a downtown Washington hotel. He then told his audience—in a demonstration of the self-sustaining nature of big-name endorsements—that the reputations of the other speakers at the same event persuaded him that it must be for a worthwhile cause.

Not everyone has succumbed to the monetary temptations. Tip your hat, for example, to Elliott Abrams, a card-carrying neoconservative who has had more than his share of misdirection in Middle East policy, for declining an invitation to speak at an MKO event. Abrams cited the fact that the group was still on the foreign terrorist organization list at the time, but the politically and morally inexcusable nature of advocating for such a group does not depend on such a formal list.

The other observation is that, while the shills have taken their fees to the bank, the fact that a group as dubious as the MKO figures so prominently in the administration’s policy on Iran demonstrates the bankruptcy of that policy. If the MKO is in the game, then we know the game is not about democracy, human rights, or doing right by ordinary Iranians. Bolton and at least some of the others who have touted the group are surely smart enough to realize that and to understand the true nature of the group. They appear to be less interested in democracy in Iran than in the capability for sabotage, destruction, and assassination in Iran—a capability that the MKO still has despite its claims to have forsaken violence.

The fact that a group as dubious as the Mujahedin-e Khalq figures so prominently in the Trump administration’s policy on Iran demonstrates the bankruptcy of that policy.

Fostering that capability may serve the objectives of regional regimes which do their own sabotage, destruction, and assassination aimed against Iran and welcome the augmentation of their capabilities for mayhem that the MKO offers. It increases instability and besmirches the reputation of the United States through associating itself with the MKO.

US, MKO Gang Up for Abortive Social Media War Against Iran

By: Kayhan Int’l 

The US, having failed in its intricate plots of the past four decades to undermine the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the airborne invasion that foundered in the sands of Tabas, the sanctions which have yielded no result, the assassination of senior officials and scientists that failed to dent the national will, and the abortive 8-year war imposed through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime, has now in a desperate attempt forged an open alliance with the MKO hypocrites to assist the terroristic cult in its social media campaign against Iranians. 

While Iran’s state organisations and Iranian citizens loyal to their homeland face social media bans, countless bots and anti-government accounts belonging to the terror group, MKO, whose treasonous siding with Saddam during the imposed war and its aftermath is still fresh in the minds of the nation, have been permitted to run rampant across Twitter and other platforms. 

It means the Islamic Republic of Iran is once again the target of double standards as part of the futile American effort to deprive it of access to media platforms where it can influence audiences overseas.
As a result, hundreds – if not thousands – of Iranian accounts have been removed from platforms owned by Twitter, Facebook, and Google parent company Alphabet.

On YouTube, this massive deletion includes accounts belonging to media outlets, especially IRIB (Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting), which operates radio broadcasts in 34 world languages and 8 TV channels such as the English-language Press TV, the Arabic language al-Alam TV and the Spanish-language Hispan TV – all of them very popular in their target areas.

This hypocrisy or blatant enmity towards Iran has drawn sharp criticisms from senior Iranian officials. Foreign Minister Zarif directly addressed Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in a tweet to highlight the hypocrisy, saying:
"Hello Jack. Twitter has shuttered accounts of real Iranians, including TV presenters & students, for supposedly being part of an ‘influence op’. How about looking at actual bots in Tirana used to prop up ‘regime change’ propaganda spewed out of (Washington) DC?”

Another tweet by Iranian legislator Amir-Hussein Qazi-Zadeh Hashemi addressed to the Twitter chief said:

"You suspended my official account as MP of Iran for my alleged violation of not determined twitter rules, but why you have not blocked bots of MKO in Tirana, a group that killed 17,000 Iranian people, used to prop up ‘regime change’ propaganda?”

It is obvious that the three main enemies of Iran and the Iranian people, that is, the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia, have ganged up to step up terrorism of all sorts against the Islamic Republic, especially after their decisive defeats in Syria and Iraq where, thanks to Tehran’s timely response to urgent requests for help from the governments of the two countries, the sinister takfiri terrorist plot to take over the entire territory between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea utterly failed. 

They have thus decided to give a facelift to MKO from a terror group to a propaganda machine. The MKO’s propaganda efforts have since increased under the current US administration of the dotard Donald Trump, assisted by his gangster Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the bespectacled mustachioed bozo John Bolton. 

Trump’s team of thugs includes infamous MKO supporters such as White House lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and etc., who along with National Security Advisor Bolton have regularly received thousands of dollars from the terrorist group over the years – courtesy, the ‘generosity’ of the Wahhabi minority cult of Saudi Arabia. 

It is unfortunate that despite their killing of innocent civilians, Western media horns have turned a blind eye to the fact that MKO terrorists have been trained by the US military in the past and share connections with the illegal Zionist entity’s notorious spy network Mossad.

Yet the group is seen by many as little more than a well-funded, mafia-style cult that is fueled by bots – accounts that are often fraudulent and behave in an automated fashion, amplifying messages through swarm-like behavior such as retweeting, liking, and republishing videos and articles posted alongside hashtags.

Iranians are well aware of the realities, and without the least doubt, just as the terrorist plots had failed, the social media plot of these traitors and their backers will miserably backfire. 

Who’s Terrorism? The Politics of Terror and Those Terrorists We Label Friends

By Catherine Shakdam

Although ‘terrorism’ has become a term our media, state officials, and politicians have grown accustomed to throw around – an expression, more often than not, of their respective world views, the word has yet to be defined objectively, and more to the point under terms the international community as a whole could get behind.

Terrorism, because of its intrinsec subjective nature sits today a euphemism for political coercion – the covert expression of political thoughts, powers seek to impose through violence and bloodshed while arguing impunity. A political label used to single out those deemed unfit, unworthy, or altogether unwelcomed, the word terrorism has been often grossly misused to reflect opinions as opposed to facts.

Just as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, terrorism is tied up to one’s subjectivity and political interests.

Admitting to such impartiality in judging what constitutes terrorism, or rather, what makes a group a terrorist entity, does not take away from its nature. Terrorism exists outside moral and ethic. It stands in a space of rationalised violence and crimes to serve hegemonic ambitions. Whomever wields it, stands indeed guilty – particularly those hands which, from behind convenient curtains play patrons to Terror.

The real issue lies not so much in the existence of terrorism – like war, it is a reality the world has had to contend with for as long as memory stretches, but in our inability to recognise Terror for what it is at its core today: a global political tool of oppression, a mean to distort truths, and a weapon used to malign designated enemies by rallying public opinion against them.

Professor Jonathan Matusitz from the Nicholson School of Communication in the United States defines terrorism as follow:

• It serves ideological or social objectives.
• It can be committed by governments, non-state actors, or undercover personnel serving on the behalf of their respective governments.
• It reaches more than the immediate target victims and is also directed at targets consisting of a larger spectrum of society.
• It is both mala prohibita (i.e., crime that is made illegal by legislation) and mala in se (i.e., crime that is inherently immoral or wrong).

There are many reasons as to why there is no universal consensus regarding the definition of terrorism. Angus Martyn in a briefing paper for the Australian Parliament has stated that “The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term foundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination.”

These divergences have made it impossible to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism.

This of course has not hindered political powers from actively and vehemently using the term to justify their aggression against certain groups or nations, and of course rationalise their ideology under the premise that they seek to ‘protect’ communities from the ruthlessness of terrorism.

If the word terrorism lacks consensus in its definition, all agree that it remains a violent expression of one’s socio-political or religious thought. One may consider adding: “against the legitimate expression of a nation’s sovereignty, or a group/community’s independence of thought and/or religion.”

While most decry terrorism, few have had the courage to denounce its real expressions – self-interests, and political opportunism have vastly contributed to such reality. Terrorism for the most part has become self-serving since directed to serve geopolitical ambitions, as opposed to denouncing the crimes it has sowed, and identifying its architects.

The case of the MKO serves a perfect example of such manipulation.

Founded in 1965 as a left-wing Muslim group the Mujahideen-e Khalq, also known as the MKO, MEK or PMOI, the group initially landed its support to Iran’s Islamic revolutionary movement to see the regime of the Shah topple. While the group initially endorsed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rule in 1979, it soon retracted after its attempt to grab power was vexed.

The nature of the group would then become defined by its willingness to shed blood – to such an extent that its very existence has been tied to its ability to wield violence as a justifiable political argument.

Having admitted to countless assassinations and other acts of violence against Iran and Iranians, the MKO’s propensity to wield Terror to advance its political agenda has been not only excused, but often rationalised on account its terrorism targets Iran, and Iran’s system of governance.

Such determination to see Iran fall has put the MKO on par with Western powers.

In an article published in CounterPunch, Robert Fantina summarises the paradox of world politics in its approach of terrorism most eloquently. He writes: “The MKO was once listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, but that designation was removed in 2012. This was a puzzling move when looked at on the surface. According to one report, by early 2016, “…out of the nearly 17,000 Iranians killed in terrorist assaults since the victory of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, about 12,000 had fallen victim to MKO’s terrorist attacks.” Some estimates put that number, and the number of MKO victims, much higher. Should an organization that has killed this many people in one country through terrorist activities not be designated a terrorist organization?”

Protected, funded, and hailed a ‘reasonable’ alternative to Iran’s Islamic Republic, the MKO sits comfortably in Paris, the French capital – a new ally to Western capitals’ hunger for regime change in those regions they seek control over.

The MKO is objectively a terrorist organisation. If anything, by the very tools it has used to exert pressure onto Iran’s sovereignty.

Regardless of what governments, and more to the point: western governments may think of Iran’s politics, one should remember that Iran, as an independent and sovereign nation is as much entitled to its views and fashion of governance than any other nation, and that as such, any and all attacks against its integrity fall within the definition of terrorism.

Acts of terrorism cannot exist in convenient political vacuums – we ought to be systematic in our condemnation and honest in our assessments.

The MKO has been used as a convenient platform to front revolting and criminal policies on account its target: Iran, has been declared fair game by the likes of the United States and its allies. In 2006, Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief spoke at a MKO conference, clearly signaling that the organisation had now powerful patrons and supporters to its cause.

A report published by the RAND Corporation, clearly exposes Washington’s ‘complacency’ towards the MKO as it offered the terror group both financial and political protection while it remained in Iraq so that it could stage attacks against neighboring Iran.

The RAND report noted that from the early weeks of the 2003 invasion of Iraq until January 2009, US forces detained and provided security to MKO terrorists to prevent the Iraqi government from expelling them to Iran.

“Among many resulting complications, this policy conundrum has made the United States vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy in the war on terrorism,” the report read.

It also noted that Washington accepted the MKO’s request for a ceasefire and designated its members as civilian “protected persons” under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

“It has proven to be extremely controversial because it appeared that the United States selectively chose to apply the Geneva Conventions to a designated terrorist organization and, further, to grant it a special status,” it added.

Terrorism we may learn remains for it has become a convenient asymmetrical weapon of war, more so in the hands of those who claim to stand for Democracy and Freedom.

Catherine Shakdam is the Director of Programs of the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Blockheads in Washington on Suicidal Course Against Iran

It seems a rat race is underway in Washington against the Islamic Republic amongst the blockheads assembled by the quixotic president, Donald Trump, on the illusion that the US in alliance with the Zionists and the rootless reactionary Arab regimes, will succeed in reducing Iran to an insignificant speck on the world map, governed by White House appointees and incapable of ever raising its head as a nation. Those trying to outdo each other in thundering threats of economic sabotage and even military action in a bid to change the system of government of a historical land which over the past four decades since the victory of the Islamic Revolution has made spectacular progress in all scientific-technological fields and whose influence has continued to grow among the people and governments of the region, are in addition to Trump the dotard: the gangster Mike Pompeo, the mustachioed bozo John Bolton, the nincompoop claiming to be a lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and the hag at the UN, Nikki Haley. Perhaps the most idiotic of this gang is Pompeo, who deeply resents the historical fact that neither his ancestors of imperial Rome had ever succeeded in conquering the Parthian and Sassanid Empires in the 700 years of wars fought in Levant, Mesopotamia and Anatolia, nor his forbears of Byzantine could end in Syria, Iraq and what is now Turkey the Islamic, political, cultural, and military supremacy of the Iran-based Daylamite, Seljuq and Ilkhanid dynasties. His inferiority complex has reached such depths of despair that he made a laughing stock of himself by tweeting on the sidelines of the recent NATO summit in Brussels of what he alleged "the specter of attacks on European soil by Iran.” Europe very well knows, despite the unexplained antipathy of some of its regimes, Islamic Iran which has been the victim of US-supported terrorism whether through the bomb blasts of the MKO hypocrites or the 8-year imposed by Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad and the string of assassinations of its scientists by American-Zionist agents, has never been involved in any untoward activity in any country, let alone Europe.

On the contrary, as part of its principled policies against terror and terrorism, Iran morally and materially provides support to brotherly governments on request (e.g. Syria, Iraq) and popular liberation movements like Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, Hezbollah, for guaranteeing peace, protecting the life and property of the people, and thwarting the terrorism of the Zionist entity and that of the macabre head-chopping and raw liver-eating Saudi-supported Takfiris. This has annoyed the US, especially Trump, whose thuggish nature led to his breach of the 7-nation accord on Iran’s peaceful use of nuclear energy, and who as part of his roguish policies to disturb the peace of the world, has hired harebrained harlequins like Pompeo in the vain hope of prolonging the precarious existence of Israel and the unrepresentative Arab autocrats of spurious entities that Britain had created between the two World Wars to ensure colonial control of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. This Italian-American was a 16-year old tramp unaware of political realities and international developments when that Sage of the Age, Imam Khomeini (RA), led the Iranian people’s grassroots movement to a resounding victory over the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi potentate, thereby changing regional and global equations forever. And now, after serving in the US army which was constantly shivering at the prospects of encounters with Iran’s indomitable forces, a brief stint at the CIA, and appointment as Secretary of State by ex-realtor Trump, largely through the shady connections of the mafia-like business world where the two operated, he thinks he can browbeat the Islamic Republic into submission when he alleges that since 1979 Iran has brought nothing but disaster to the region and to ‘its own people’. (He means the traitors on the CIA payroll always conspiring against the Iranian nation).

Maybe Pompeo understands the impossibility of his delirious outbursts against Iran and is indulging in such theatrics to further fleece the Arab reactionary regimes of their oil wealth. This was evident in the recent interview he gave to a daily while on a visit to Abu Dhabi, where in a bid to lift the sagging morale of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain which are notorious for repression of the masses they rule, and whose US-supported forces are bogged down in Yemen against the popular Ansarallah defenders, he said: "If there is another deal (with Iran) it will be of permanent duration not temporary. It will not just be about the nuclear programme but about their space programme which is really a proxy for their missile efforts…” It was clear he was talking trash, when he went on to decry Iran’s prudent stance in helping President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in defeating the terrorist bid to take over the country, when he spewed poison at Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Ansarallah of Yemen, and Iraq’s popular mobilization units (Hashed ash-Sha’bi), and when he threatened the leadership of the Islamic Republic and senior commanders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), little knowing the terrible fate that awaits him. To sum up, Trump and his team of thugs are living in a fool’s paradise when they think of confronting a system of government based on Divine Laws and supported by the dedicated Muslim masses of Iran, who unafraid of American sanctions and plots, have at every moment of crisis, brilliantly risen to the occasion to rub with more vigour in the dust the already bloodied nose of the US. -Kayhan International