Not only has the Iranian threat to Israel not subsided since the signing of the US-led nuclear deal, but the Islamic Republic has become even more brazen in its mockery of America.
By: Barney Breen-Portnoy/The Algemeiner
Iran demonstrated once again on Wednesday that its animus toward Israel has not abated in the wake of the nuclear agreement it reached last year with six world powers.
Reuters reported that a banner on the side of a truck carrying a new long-range Iranian ballistic missile — the Zolfaqar — in a military parade in Tehran issued a direct threat to the Jewish state. “If the leaders of the Zionist regime make a mistake then the Islamic Republic will turn Tel Aviv and Haifa into dust,” it said.
The parade — held to mark the 36th anniversary of the September 1980 Iraqi invasion of the Islamic Republic — also featured displays of other weapons systems — including the advanced Russian-made S-300 aerial defense system.
Iran recently deployed the S-300 at the Fordo nuclear facility south of Tehran.
At Wednesday’s parade, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, called on the US to withdraw its military forces from the Persian Gulf region.
“We tell the Americans that it’s better that the capital and wealth of the American people should not be wasted on their inappropriate and detrimental presence in the Persian Gulf,” he was quoted as saying.
Furthermore, the Iranian regime-aligned news agency Tasnim reported that Jafari mocked America, saying, “If they want to extend their reach and engage in adventurism they should go to the Bay of Pigs.” This was a nod to a failed US-sponsored invasion of Cuba in April 1961 that was intended to topple Fidel Castro’s communist regime.
A slew of top Iranian officials have recently spoken out against the US military presence in the Persian Gulf. Last week, Ali Shamkhani — the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council — called the US military presence in the region “unwelcome and illegal.”
Also last week, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy, Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, warned that US military forces must leave the Persian Gulf region “before any problem arises.”
A US Navy coastal patrol ship was forced to change course recently after a Revolutionary Guards Corps fast-attack craft came within 100 yards of it in the Persian Gulf. This marked the fourth such incident within a month.
And a week and a half ago, Iran threatened to shoot down two US Navy surveillance planes that were flying over the Persian Gulf close to Iranian airspace.