Similar behavior of Israel and U.S. against Iran’s ‘hard revenge’

The newly-appointed Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s Quds Force said that Iran dealt the US “a first slap” by striking two American bases in Iraq in retaliation for the assassination of his predecessor, Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

Brigadier General Esmail Qaani said in a message addressed to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Thursday Jan. 9, “With God’s blessing, the first slap was decisively delivered to the world’s largest capitalist power.” He also expressed hope that the ballistic missile attacks on American bases in Iraq would serve as “a complement” to the Iraqi parliament’s significant decision to expel foreign troops as well as the regional nations’ will to put an end to the “malevolent and filthy presence of the US and global arrogance in the region.” Brigadier General Qaani was echoing comments by Ayatollah Khamenei, who described the air raid as “a slap” during a speech on Wednesday Jan. 8. The Leader added that “the talk of revenge and such debates are a different issue. For now, a slap was delivered on their face last night.”

Zionist regime's officials at the time claimed that none of their troops were killed in the retaliatory action by the resistance movement; while detailed information revealed that about 60 Zionist regime’s forces were killed.

After the retaliatory operation by the fighters of the resistance movement at 3:10 a.m. local time, CNN television channel reported that the casualties were significant. Only after ten minutes all radio and telecommunication networks and even the power of the targeted areas were cut off, then the Western media outlets insisted that there were no casualties by shifting their approach in all news fields.

To understand why such an approach was adopted the following points should be considered.

1. The vow of retaliatory operation was fulfilled in a situation that the Zionist regime and its affiliated media outlets were trying to describe Iran’s claim about the “end of hit-and-run period” as a bluff and question the Iranian ability to take revenge.

2. This hard revenge revealed several facts for the Zionist regime, including Iran’s military capability and the will to use it against any aggression.

3. Zionist regime's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been in Sochi, Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin at that time, sent a message by Russians declaring his lack of will to respond to the attack and called for mediation to persuade Iran to halt its retaliatory attacks.

Reviewing the Israeli military and media reaction to the Iranian retaliatory response shows that the U.S. government has taken exactly the same approach in the early hours after a strong slap by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Americans, on the one hand, refuse to report the casualties of their troops or facilities in Iraq's Ain al-Assad Airbase and even suspended the Israeli journalist’s Twitter account because of a tweet about the casualties, and on the other hand, they repeatedly claim that they have suffered no damage by the IRGC’s operation.

Meanwhile, Persian speaking mercenaries on social media were trying to derail public opinion inside the country about the broad and successful operation and portray the Iranian 'hard revenge' as insignificant.

Interestingly, fake accounts on social media and foreign-baked media outlets that circulated the big lie of killing 1500 Iranian people in November events, claimed that the denial by Iran’s official resources is due to their desperation. Now, they confirm Trump’s claims over no damage of the attacks and believe that Iran should provide evidence for the success of its operation.

It should be noted that in both cases, the enemy was sure of Iran’s hard and destructive response. Putting troops in highest alert in various areas and bases by the enemy proves this claim.

However, the following points should be noted regarding the missile strikes on Wednesday morning on U.S. bases in Iraq:

1. A country that they believe is at a lower military level in comparison with the U.S., could undermine the reputation of the world’s greatest military power by dealing a hard and surprising blow to one of the main American bases and destroying its ultra-modern equipment.

2. In the short term, there will not be possible to report exact statistics on casualties and equipment damages due to the lack of direct access to the target area, and what some sources announced is minimal and approximate numbers.

3. The most important event that can happen in the process of 'hard revenge' following the assassination of Lt. Gen. Soleimani is the withdrawal of the U.S. occupation troops from the region, a matter that the Americans are well aware of its heavy cost.

4. Today, the American are faced with a dilemma. They have to release the exact number of casualties and resort to playing the innocent to remain in the region or continue their current game and witness their removal from the region.

Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has described the IRGC’s recent revenge strikes targeting the US’ Ain al-Assad Airbase in western Iraq as only “the starting point of a great operation,” which will grow in sphere to cover the entire region.

Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh said on Thursday Jan. 9 that the strikes, which were undertaken with the codenamed “Operation Martyr Soleimani” in the early hours of Wednesday Jan 8, targeted one of the most important of America’s outposts.

He outlined “The strikes were not meant to cause fatalities. We actually intended to deliver a blow to the enemy’s military machine.”

Early on Wednesday, the IRGC fired volleys of ballistic missiles at Ain al-Assad in Iraq’s Anbar Province, and another outpost in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, both of which housed US occupation forces.

Noting that “hitting the US bases, downing their aircraft, or even killing Trump himself” would not constitute a worthy compensation for the assassination of Lt. Gen. Soleimani," General Hajizadeh said “We consider the blood of our martyrs to be invaluable.”

The commander then cited the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei as saying following the martyrdom that “the real blood money to be paid by the US for the atrocity is its complete expulsion from the region.”

Hajizadeh announced following the assassination, all regional nations and resistance groups will join in efforts to expel the Americans.

Citing the example of the Iraqi parliament’s ratification of a bill following the atrocity that mandated withdrawal of all US-led forces from the Arab country’s soil, he said: “We hope that governments would take relevant initiative too.”

The commander of IRGC's Aerospace Division further stated that the IRGC only fired 13 missiles at the Iraq-based outposts, but had actually prepared several hundred for launch.

He said had the goal sought by the operation was afflicting fatalities, the Islamic Republic could have targeted the facilities used to accommodate the US forces or their deployment centers, adding, "“We were able to plan the operation in a way to kill 500 American forces in the first stage and if they responded to our strike, they would have lost 4,000-5,000 troops in the second and third stages.”

The Islamic Republic, though, instead intended to strike the enemy’s “command and control center,” and succeeded in its goal by “destroying the central Command Center lying within Ain al-Assad.”

Brigadier General Hajizadeh emphasized that the US forces completely failed to deliver any response to the IRGC’s operation, although they were on full alert following the assassination of Lt. Gen. Soleimani and 12 unmanned aircraft in addition to a number of piloted ones were on surveillance mission above Ain al-Assad as the IRGC was about to launch its revenge attacks.

Trump has denied that the Iranian strikes led to any casualties, but Hajizadeh said the US military conducted at least nine sorties after the operation, taking the wounded to Jordan and the Occupied Territories, while Chinook helicopters transferred the injured Americans to the US hospital in Baghdad.

Referring to the Islamic Republic’s authorities’ outspoken and confident acknowledgement of the revenge operation, the Iranian military commander said “It has been unprecedented since World War II that a shot would be fired at the US military with a country assuming responsibility for it.”

The Iranian commander stated that the missile launch from Iran, was followed by an major electronic warfare as a result of which all unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the American forces were rendered inoperable, which dealt a major psychological blow to those forces.

ME