Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei received speaker and members of the newly-elected 5th Assembly of Experts on Thursday morning. He praised the Assembly for its important place which emanated from an important and great duty the Assembly was to perform. He then made general recommendations on how to remain ‘Revolutionary’ in the face of ever-growing difficulties and pressures by the enemies who sought “to render hollow the Revolution of its influential forces.”
“The Assembly of Expert is the outcome of a democratic process where people elected their representatives; bringing together religious and scientific scholars in the Assembly would provide it a huge capability to exchange and share novel ideas and to create unprecedented level of harmony,” the Leader said. “The path adopted by the Assembly should be the path of the Revolution and should promote the rule of Islam, freedom, independence, social justice, welfare, eradication of poverty, resisting the devastating waves of social, political, cultural, and economic voices of the western world, and resistance against the imperialism.”
Ayatollah Khamenei believed that Islam was a true fighter against imperialism and global despotism; “any government with a genuine claim to fight imperialism should have necessary mechanisms and means including military, cultural, political, economic, and media capabilities to meet the demanding job,” he told the meeting. “The enemy’s first resort to physical invasion during war with Baathist Iraq proved unavailing; all their measures was met by a measure by the sagacious leadership of late Imam Khomeini (RA) and the nation’s perseverance in the face of the difficulties.”
“However,” the Leader continued, “they would not abandon the fight and would seek other means including media propaganda and soft war as the second phase of confrontation with the Revolution; sanctions and attempts on political isolation would also be met with heavenly blessings our nation enjoyed and received by virtue of their faith.”
“Infiltration, far more dangerous and surreptitious tactic, is the other side of a coin whose major side is soft war; they would seek to infiltrate our decision-making bodies, they would seek to weaken religious beliefs of our people, they would humiliate and denigrate our clerics and Revolutionary young cohort, and other host of tactics to estrange the Revolution, and to empty it of its effective forces,” the Leader emphasized.
Ayatollah Khamenei however provided the remedies in the face of these encroachments; “innovations in the framework of religious discipline by erudite and scholarly minds would help heal the wounds inflicted by the enemy; the wounds of ethnic strife and sectarian conflict, partisan struggles, and superficially fueled tense political situation should be met by the Assembly as their major duties,” he proposed the meeting.
He then turned to the much-quoted issue where the Leader has been well-versed, i.e. the national sovereignty which he emphasizeded, helped hit a deal with world powers which ultimately recognized Iran’s nuclear rights; “we won significantly against an intransigent party who would not allow us to enrich uranium to 20 per cent purity; however, our national sovereignty and strength made it concrete for all; manufacturing 19,000 centrifuges along with second, third, and fourth generations of centrifuges, and heavy-water complex provide us with our nuclear power; they did not give us these boons; rather, we succeeded in securing them all through our power and leverage in a time when no power would bestow on Iran the right to have even a single centrifuge,” he concluded.
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