In a speech to army commanders today, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei asked for more advanced military capabilities to deter any possibility of "enemy aggression."
Khamenei, while praising Iran's achievement on the nuclear front, made it clear to the world that there will no turning back on Iran's illicit nuclear program and that Iran will never bend to Western pressures.
This is while just hours after the news of attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed the American ambassador and three aides and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Iranian leaders moved to incite worldwide riots against America.
The clerics, military and all organizations within the Islamic regime concurred on a plan to capitalize on the anger over a video made in California that demeaned the Prophet Muhammad.
Iran's first vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, said the regime will "track down" those responsible for the video but did not say what would happen to them, Mehr news agency reported Monday.
According to a former intelligence officer of the Revolutionary Guards who has defected to Europe, the current events in the Middle East provide an opening for the Islamic regime to divert attention from its nuclear program and deteriorating conditions at home due to sanctions, and to delay any attack on its nuclear facilities by Israel.
As long as the uncertainty continues in the Middle East, Iran believes Israel will be under immense pressure not to take any action that would almost guarantee further instability in the Islamic world, the source concluded.
Other sources in Iran said the Islamic regime, through its assets and proxies around the world, is not only working on escalating the crisis within Islamic communities, it is also ordering plans for terrorist activities against U.S. interests and citizens worldwide.
This would further allow the Islamic regime to buy time over its illicit nuclear program. Their focus extends from neighboring countries into countries in Africa where explosives and arms have long been transferred through the Iranian Quds Forces.
Grand ayatollahs, the Islamic student associations and official organizations within the regime issued strong condemnations of the video and blamed America for its production. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed America and the "Zionists" for the video and demanded the producer be punished.
Grand Ayatollah Nouri Hamadani warned America that Muslims will never rest against "this evil action" and that it should expect much "harsher reactions" by Muslims.
"The enemies and the Zionist regime are horrified by the Islamic Awakening (Arab Spring) in the region; therefore they instigate such insult against Islam," he said. "The Zionist regime has reached its end, and the oppressors should know that these idiotic actions will not stop the expansion of Islam, which is a worldwide religion."
Hamadani, who has hailed the Iranian nuclear program as "significant and one that shocked the infidels," said the Arab Spring in the region was due to the Islamic regime in Iran and that the awakening must expand to the world stage for the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the 12th Imam. Hamadani is a Twelver and marja, a great religious authority with followers around the world.
The Friday prayer imam of the Iranian city of Zabol, Kazem Tabatabaei, urged Muslims worldwide for "jihad to destroy the oppressors." Hassan Abassi, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards and current regime strategist, called the attacks on the U.S. consulate and embassy a repeat of what took place after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Another of the regime's ayatollahs, Hussein Mazaheri, said that, "If all Muslims boycott America over this crime for just one month, this criminal (America) will end up begging (to be taken back)." In that pursuit, Iranian officials have requested that Arab nations join a campaign to "support an oil boycott on the instigators."
Gamal Zaharn, a former Egyptian parliamentarian and current group manager of political science at Suez University in Egypt, said that, "People of Egypt, along with all Islamic nations, are extremely angry over the insult to the dear Prophet of Islam and request a break in political relations with America as the main instigator of the video," according to Fars News Agency, an outlet run by the Guards.
Egyptians not only want an end to diplomatic ties with America and deportation of its ambassador from Egypt, Zahran said, but also the cancellation of the Egyptian president's travel plans to the U.S. for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly meeting.
Reza Kahlili translated this Iranian video about Islamic prophecies of a coming messiah and the destruction of Israel:
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran's Revolutionary Guards and author of the award-winning book "A Time to Betray" (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).