But, aren't you also advocating for Iran to abandon its anti-zionist stance?
Here for instance you consider it to be a "very good" thing for Iranians to participate in a videogame competition in Isra"el" (a news item by the zionist publication "Jerusalem Post" that turned out to be bogus):
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/iran-to-send-gamers-to-israel-for-international-e-sports-competition-647878/amp
defence.pk
If one rejects the very notion of Resistance against zionism, then one will not be particularly well placed to deem Iranian efforts against Tel Aviv as insufficient.
Either one is supportive of Iran's anti-zionist position, and then one may logically be entitled to formulate criticism as long as it is sincere and constructive (rather than motivated by mere resentment towards the Islamic Republic); or, one does not believe in the anti-zionist struggle, in which case one should not blame Tehran for the way it chooses to conduct its Resistance against zionism.
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Well, there's been no change: the highest levels of the clergy (marjai'a, mujtahids, grand ayatollahs) hadn't been the targets of terror attacks back then either.
This is because first, most have been apolitical, second because those who haven't, were and are too highly ranked in the political system for the cost/benefit analysis to make sense to potential perpetrators. Assassinating the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, for instance, will necessarily have considerable repercussions for any criminal stupid enough to attempt such a thing, be it the US regime itself, so that they will not view the expected benefits to be worthy of the costs involved.
Regarding the first decade of the Revolution: in the early 1980's, the MKO was committing dozens upon dozens of killings. Nowadays the situation does not allow the enemy to conduct that many attacks, it will thus have to carefully select its targets. That's why out of handful of martyrs the enemy managed to assassinate on Iranian soil over the past 12 years or so, most if not all were nuclear scientists. If they had the possibility to assassinate more, then there would no doubt also be clerics among the martyrs.
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution is still missing a hand from a terror attack. I wonder who else among current world leaders is an actual mujahid who put his life on the line, resulting in him being injured in such a manner? As far as I know, other than the Supreme Leader, there is no other example at this time. Also, what major political leader other than Hassan Nasrallah has a son martyred at young age while fighting for the cause?
Therefore I would personally not contrast clerics and non-clerics in this context.
Ebrahim Raisi toured the frontlines in Syria.
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Imam Khomeini didn't live in the west. His stay in France did not even last for four months (October 1978 to February 2, 1979). And it came to this only because Turkish and Iraqi authorities decided to expell him from their territories.
Also according to the memoirs of a high ranking French official, the French secret services contemplated assassinating him. In addition to this a "Mossad" official admitted that Tel Aviv had hatched its own plan to kill the Imam upon his arrival in Tehran.
The west or the zionists didn't give the shah any instructions about Imam Khomeini.
Only months after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, elements with reported links to the CIA attempted coups to topple the newly intoduced political system and eradicate its leadership. You can look up the Nojeh coup attempt by Air Force officers loyal to the monarchy, etc.
The US regime doesn't need to go to such lengths to justify its aggressive policies in the region (justify them to whom?). They will simply order their lackeys to purchase their overpriced weapons en masse and station GI's on their territories, and the lackeys will bow and oblige. Nothing more is really needed to have these clients obey.
Nuclear warheads can't be suppressed in the same manner as individuals can be assassinated or token numbers of centrifuges sabotaged. Such weapons would be guarded by segments of Iran's security forces that are outside the enemy's reach (at least if the cost of such operations is to remain acceptable to said enemy).
I am yet to witness another country muster enough courage to take on the zionist regime and the US like Iran has been doing. The fact that Iran has not only survived this for 40+ years but is actually getting stronger buy the day and increasing its deterrence against all out aggression, is a testimony to the competence of its leadership. I am certain hardly another leadership would be capable of such an extraordinary feat.
Pakistan is not facing the same adversary - or rather, when it comes to Iran and Pakistan's common zio-American enemy, that enemy has not opened the chapter of active, full fledged hostilities against Pakistan yet. On the zionist death list, Pakistan's turn to be destroyed comes after Iran. India is certainly a large and relatively capable country, but in terms of raw power there's no comparison between India and global zionism + its lackeys, namely the US.
On this I fully agree.
1) Iran didn't completely hand over its nuclear assets. Western-apologetic liberals within the system (reformist + moderate factions) would certainly have no issues with doing so, but the revolutionary core of the IR prevented them from going that far. Not that the JCPOA was a satisfactory deal from the perspective of the revolutionaries but their presence imposed certain red lines on the liberal Rohani administration and prevented worse scenarios.
Nuclear technology has been indigenized by Iran. So unless Iran is destroyed like Iraq and Syria, or unless in-house liberals somehow manage to eradicate the revolutionaries (extremely unlikely), this acquisition of scientific knowledge and expertise is irreversible and can always be relied upon to resuscitate any and all aspects of Iran's nuclear program suspended or cancelled under deals such as the JCPOA.
2) You don't need nuclear weapons to effectively deter the US and Isra"el" from major forms of aggression, as long as your weapons are survivable enough, able to reach Tel Aviv and cause sufficient damage.
The equation is the following:
Extremely limited geographical and demographic extension of the zionist regime, with a limited number of critical military and infrastructural targets.
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Fragility of the "zionist dream", which hinges upon the IDF's carefully cultivated image of flawless invincibility. Any large scale, sudden, traumatizing blow to that image will demoralize a settler population used to western standards of comfort and security, to the point of triggering mass emigration back to Europe, the US, Canada, etc.
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America's actual status as a zionist vassal (underscored once again by Biden's now famous remarks), and the subsequent fact that to the ruling oligarchy in Washington, Isra"el" and its security are more important than the US itself.
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Iran's tens of thousands of ballistic missiles, including many highly precise ones, and the associated mobile launchers and hardened underground missile bases (missile cities as they are called), offer a deterrence comparable to nuclear weapons when used against the zionist entity (with the added benefit of minimizing civilian casualties, namely among indigeneous Palestinians, and of sparing Masjid ul-Aqsa from any potential fallout).
See above regarding the Islamic Revolution. Also trust me, if it was easy for them to overthrow the Islamic Republic they would have already done so in a heartbeat long time ago.
Seriously? Do we need to list all domains in which Iranian scientists and industries (from stem cells to nanotechnologies and many more) have largely surpassed any technology in existence back then?
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This is contradicted by the tremendous efforts which the US regime and its zionist masters have been putting into trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic and to provoke "regime change" in Iran.
The propaganda and psy-ops war waged on the IR is totally unprecedented in volume, mass, sophistication and underhandedness. The sanctions regime slapped on Iran is also among the worst in history. Washington and Tel Aviv's support for the entire array of anti-IR oppositionists - from the MKO camp in Albania to monarchists and even takfiri and "ethno"-separatist terrorist gangs, shows that they do not want the Islamic Republic and its leadership to govern in Iran. So does the behaviour of zionist lobbies and pressure groups accross the US, Canada and Europe.
And the primary targets of their wrath, as visible from their propaganda narrative against Iran, have consistently been the Supreme Leader and the IRGC.
