Hassan Dai, March 6, 2015

In this speech, the commander of Ghods Force said that crusades between the West and Islam continues today. Shiite Iran is the new center of gravity in the Islamic world and the Shiite crescent, led by Iran is not only political but a formidable economic power as majority of energy resources are in Shiite regions

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Ghassem Soleimani is the commander of Iran’s Ghods Force, which is part of the Revolutionary Guards responsible for extraterritorial operations. Ghods units and its Shiite proxy militias like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Badr organization in Iraq operate throughout the Middle East. Since the Syrian uprising in 2011, Ghods and its subordinated militias have intervened massively in Syria to save the Assad regime and as a result, they have become de-facto military occupier of Syria.

In Iraq, after the US invaded the country in 2003, the Iranian regime, Ghods force and its Shiite militias gradually became the dominant political and military force. Since 2014, Ghods and its militias have mobilized to take the leading role in fight against ISIS and Soleaimani has become de-facto military commander of Iraq.

There are some in US administration who welcome this new development and consider that Iranian intervention to fight Sunni extremists is positive. On the contrary, there are a large number of politicians and experts who warn against the catastrophic consequences of Iranian military expansion throughout the Middle East and takeover of Iraq.

In such circumstances, it is crucial to understand the Iranian regime’s vision and strategy in the Middle East. In February 2014, at the occasion of Iranian revolution, Soleimani made a very important speech before a group of Bassiji militias in Kerman. This speech highlights the Iranian leadership’s world view and the role that they believe the Islamic Republic should play to empower the Shiite crescent and lead the Islamic nation to liberate itself from the domination of crusaders.

Part of Soleimani’s speech was video recorded and is posted here.

The full transcript of speech is posted by Fars News agency. In his speech, Soleimani outlined the views held by the Iranian leaders that the war between Islam and “Crusaders” continue today and “Iran is the only Islamic country in the world that has been liberated from the tentacles of crusaders. After the fall of Ottoman Empire, the crusaders exerted a total and full dominance over the Islamic world. But, Imam Khomeini liberated Iran from this cruel dominance.”

In his speech Soleimani made the case that the crusades between Islam and the West continues and Iran is leading the crusade to liberate the Islamic nation:

Since the fall of Andalusia in 1492, the Islamic world continued to decline. During this period of decline, the Ottoman Empire, as a vast Islamic empire that included much of the Islamic world collapsed, and Britain and France fragmented it and divided among themselves

This decline of the Islamic world reached the point zero with the fall of Jerusalem in 1967. The Jews conquered the Quds in the heart of the Islamic world.

But with the victory of the Islamic Revolution under the leadership of Imam Khomein in 1979 the decline of the Islamic world stopped, and since then, the trend has turned upward and the rise of the Islamic world has begun. Since our revolution, we have witnessed new developments that confirms this upward trend, like the Hezbollah war against Israel in 2006 and the war in Gaza in 2009.

Then, Soleimani explained that the Islamic revolution helped the emergence of Shiite power within the Islamic world and Iran as a new center of power capable of liberating the Islamic nation from the domination of crusaders:

What is the Shia’ Revival? Since Imam Ali was martyred 14 centuries ago, the Sunni caliphates of Umayyads, Abbasids and Ottomans have been ruling the Islamic world and nowhere the Shiites had the opportunity to express freely their faith.

The current Shia Revival, under the Iranian leadership makes Iran the center of gravity in the region and provides Iran with religious authority, legitimacy, security and power. This Shiite authority was a key factor that made the US defeat in Iraq possible. This authority gives us with influence in Iraq.

When we talk about the Shiite revival we should remember that the Shiite crescent is not only political, it is an economic power because most of the Middle East energy resources are located in Shiite regions in Iran, Iraq and Saudie Arabi.