Juan Cole: No, Mr. Netanyahu, Iran Isn't Trying to Take Over the World & It Isn't ISIL
And they certainly aren't doing to any Sunnis what Saudi Arabia is doing to Shi'ites in Yemen.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/31264-focus-no-mr-netanyahu-iran-isnt-trying-to-take-over-the-world-a-it-isnt-isil
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanahu charged last week that Iran was the major sponsor of terrorism in the world and that it wants to take over the whole world. He also likened Iran to the faux caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Iran is not trying to take over the world. Here are some replies to Netanyahu’s silliness:
1. One sign Iran is not trying to take over the world is that, as I have written before, “it has a small military budget, about $10 bn., on the order of that of Norway or Singapore. It has no air force to speak of. The US military budget is roughly 80 times that of Iran.”
2. As I noted earlier this year, Iran’s leader, Ali Khamenei, disavows any such ambitions:
“According to the BBC Monitoring translation of Khamenei.ir , Khamenei said:
The Islamic Republic is not a threat to any country. We have never been a threat even to our neighbours, let alone to distant countries. Our contemporary history clearly shows this. Even when some of our neighbours treated us not in a neighbourly manner, we showed restraint. Iran has never invaded a country and never will. The fake myth of nuclear weapons has been devised by America and then Europe and some other bootlickers in order to portray the Islamic Republic as a threat.”
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5. With regard to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), Iran is one of the few effective countering forces. It has helped the Iraqi government kick Daesh out of Diyala Province and half of Ninewah Province. Iran ally Hizbullah is driving Daesh out of the mountains on the Syria/ Lebanon border. Israel doesn’t appear to have done anything practical to vanquish Daesh, unlike Iran.
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