Thomas Wictor

Paging Sean Penn. Mr. Penn? You said that the traditional Iranian chant of “Death to America!” shouldn’t be taken literally. What do you make of this?

Iran has prepared almost 200,000 young men in countries across the Middle East to help with the arrival of the Mahdi, a Muslim leader who will usher in justice prior to the Day of Judgment, a Revolutionary Guard commander said earlier this week. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari said recent violence across the region, including the rise of the Islamic State group, was a sign the arrival of the messianic Muslim leader was imminent, the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah reported.

Jafari said the current developments in the region, “the formation of [the Islamic State group] and Takfiri [extremist] groups, and the events that occurred in the past years are paving the ground for the emergence of Imam Mahdi,” Middle East Monitor reported. “You can now see the positive results in the readiness of nearly 200,000 young armed in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.”

Shiite Muslims generally believe the Mahdi will arrive following a period of widespread violence and instability, and will usher in justice and an event like the Armageddon, the conclusive battle between good and evil.

Today the US and the EU lifted economic sanctions on Iran, because the Islamic Republic has met the “political commitments” of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Let’s be clear: Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari is not a commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); Jafari is the commander of the IRGC. The formal name is the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Jafari is its highest-ranking officer.

Jafari said that the 200,000 men have been prepared to help the Mahdi in the final battle between good and evil. The Mahdi will usher in an era of peace and justice by imposing Islam on the world by force. In order to conquer the planet, the Mahdi will need the best and most destructive weapons available.

But Iran would never acquire The Bomb. Heavens, no!

Please. The head of the IRGC just admitted that Iran is doing everything in its power to make the world submit to Islam. That’s why Iranian foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif looked like this the day that the JCPOA—the Iranian nuclear deal—was finalized.

It’s easy to fool ourselves that Iranian intentions are pretty much the same as those of everybody else. Well, the commander of the IRGC just said that a messianic figure is going to appear shortly, and the Iranian armed forces stand ready to help him fight the final battle between Muslims and non-Muslims.

In the US Army, the Chief of Staff is the highest-ranking officer, but by law he has no operational command authority. General Mark A. Miley can’t give any orders. The chain of command for the US armed forces is as follows.

President of the United States
Secretary of Defense
Commanders of the Combatant Commands

I get a lot of mail from non-Iranians who tell me that we have nothing to worry about from Iran. Let me ask those people a question.

This is General Lloyd J. Austin III, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM).

How would you feel if Austin made the following statement?

“The United States has armed and trained almost 200,000 young men in countries across the world to help with the return of Jesus Christ. Recent global violence, including the rise of the Islamic State, is a sign that the return of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is imminent. You can now see the positive results in the readiness of nearly 200,000 young armed Christians in the UK, France, Brazil, Japan, and India. The United States military stands prepared to help Christ defeat the forces of evil and usher in a new era of peace and justice.”

You’d all have strokes. Austin would be immediately and RIGHTFULLY relieved of duty and carted away in a straitjacket.

So why is it different when the head of the IRGC says that Iran is going to help the Mahdi defeat non-Muslims in a global war?

Iranian propaganda has backfired

Here’s what the Iranians actually believe, due to their own propaganda. They’re dead serious.

A senior Iranian military commander in charge of the country’s Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that the 10 U.S. sailors who were recently captured and subsequently released by the Islamic Republic “started crying after [their] arrest,” according to Persian language comments made during military celebrations this weekend.

Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the IRGC, which is responsible for boarding the U.S. ships and arresting the sailors, claimed in recent remarks, the “American sailors started crying after arrest, but the kindness of our Guard made them feel calm.”

“Since the end of the Second World War, no country has been able to arrest American military personnel,” the commander said, according to an independent translation of his Persian-language remarks made Friday during a “martyrs’ commemoration ceremony” in Isfahan.

Well, except for North Korea, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Somalia, and the People’s Republic of China, Iran is indeed the only country to have captured American military personnel since the end of World War II.

Meanwhile, during Friday prayers in Iran, a commander of the IRGC unit that detained the U.S. boats claimed that the American military cowered when faced down by Iranian troops.

“I saw the weakness, cowardice, and fear of American soldiers myself. Despite having all of the weapons and equipment, they surrendered themselves with the first action of the guardians of Islam,” Ahmad Dolabi, an IRGC commander, said in Persian-language remarks at a prayer service in Iran’s Bushehr providence.

“American forces receive the best training and have the most advanced weapons in the world,” he added. “But they did not have the power to confront the Guard due to weakness of faith and belief.”

You need to understand that they’re not kidding. They’re acting out of religious zealotry. To them, the US is genuinely—not metaphorically—the Great Satan; because Americans aren’t Muslim, they’re weak and easily defeated. Islam in and of itself will bring about the final victory.

Propaganda is necessary to rally the troops and the home front. However, total fabrications will work only if your enemy gives up. The Iranians are facing people who will not only never surrender, they’re so technologically advanced that they’re about to effortlessly overthrow the Islamic Republic.

It’s very quiet out there

Today—January 16, 2016—is strangely devoid of news from the Middle East. Yesterday Saudi Arabia casually revealed a hugely significant tidbit.

The Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, said his country had nothing to hide. A host of foreign officials have been posted to the Yemen command and control centre, he said, have been able to scrutinise its air campaign, and were satisfied by its safeguards.

“We have British officials and American officials and officials from other countries in our command and control centre. They know what the target list is and they have a sense of what it is that we are doing and what we are not doing,” he told journalists in London after meeting British ministers and US secretary of state, John Kerry.

See? I was right. The Saudi-led Coalition is not committing mass war crimes in Yemen. American, British, and other (cough*ISRAELI*cough) military personnel have been posted to the Saudi command-and-control center. That means multiple western nations are directly involved in the operation. THAT means that everyone knows the real purpose of the Yemen war (deception and distraction), and everyone knows what’s coming next.

Below is a photo of holes made by inert munitions that the Saudi-led Coalition dropped. These bombs were filled with concrete so that they wouldn’t explode.

Human Rights Watch is lying. The Houthi civilian casualty figures are lies.

Other big news is that the UN has given its blessings to a full-on war to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and defeat al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria.

The U.N. Security Council held a meeting Friday afternoon to draw attention to Syria’s besieged cities—especially Madaya—and bring the spotlight to the parties responsible. Kyung-Wha Kang, a U.N. assistant secretary-general, briefed the council.

While the world has been shocked by the images coming out of Madaya this week, Kang said: “Regrettably, siege and starvation as a weapon of war has become routine and systematic in Syria, with devastating consequences for civilians.”

About 400,000 Syrians are trapped in besieged areas by government and allied forces, ISIS, nonstate armed groups and the Al Nusra Front, Kang said.

The U.S. representative at the meeting pointed the finger directly at the Syrian government, saying it was responsible for the siege of Madaya, one of 12 cities that is cut off by regime forces or their allies.

Add that to something that happened in the summer.

The swift Israeli reaction on Thursday and Friday to the launching of four rockets from Syria at the Galilee and Golan shows how deep is the Israeli intelligence penetration of Iran’s military. It was not the first time that precise and updated intelligence data enabled Israel to prevent terrorist attacks from Syria sponsored by Iran, or to execute attacks against Bashar Assad’s regime, or whatever is left of it.

The rocket launchings – which caused no casualties or damage to property, except sparking fires in open fields – didn’t surprise IDF Intelligence. They were expecting some sort of an attack against Israel from the Syrian Golan and prepared themselves for the eventuality.

Israel’s response was gradual but fierce. First, Syrian Army positions were attacked with artillery and missiles. Later, a senior Israeli officer revealed sensitive intelligence information by naming a senior Iranian officer and holding him responsible for ordering the rocket attacks. He is Saad Ezadi, in charge of the Israeli desk in the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The military source also said that, although the rockets were fired by members of the pro-Iranian Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, those who ordered it were the commanders of the Quds Force.

That wasn’t all that Israel did.

On Friday morning, Israel offered an even more tangible demonstration of its ability to monitor the region when an aircraft, perhaps a drone, fired rockets that destroyed a moving car about 10 miles from the Golan border.

Israel said the occupants were the members of the team that had fired the rockets. Four of the five persons in the car were killed. The fate of the fifth is unknown. A rebel group in the area reported that one of the five was an Iranian officer.

“We followed the cell and attacked it in an area that was under the control of the Syrian army,” said a senior Israeli officer. He described it as “an Islamic Jihad cell controlled by Iran.”

Israeli writer Yossi Melman asks a pertinent question.

So why does Iran appear to be playing at this sensitive time into the hands of its arch enemy, Netanyahu?

Religious faith. Jew-hate. Bigotry. Contempt. Arrogance. Pride. Denial. Fanaticism. Self-delusion.

Go back to the statement of Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The mullahs and their armed forces in truth and in fact believe that the Mahdi is coming, and he’ll destroy all of Iran’s enemies.

Belief can’t stand up to these

During the summer, there were massive military exercises held in Colorado, Texas, California, and Nevada. I finally figured out what they were.

Israel and the Arab League have created expeditionary forces that contain jet aircraft, helicopter gunships, armor, self-propelled artillery, ballistic missile launchers, and mechanized special operators. The ground components can be transported by C-17 Globemasters and C-130 Hercules. Both of these aircraft can land on dirt. Israel and the Arab League have 12 Globemasters and 134 Hercules, but they also have a huge number of helicopter transports, and they could hire Antonov AN-124s from Ukraine.

The AN-124 can also land on dirt. The exercises that took place in the US this summer were the expeditionary forces working out the kinks. Unprecedented firepower is the key. All my witnesses told me that the sky was filled horizon to horizon with bullets, cannon rounds, and missiles.

Iran has absolutely no conception of what it’s about to suffer.

They looked, but there was none to save; even unto the Lord, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth, I did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread them abroad.

—II Samuel 22: 42-43