At a ceremony for the unveiling of the Iranian-made COVID-19 vaccine, Hossein Salami, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that Iran had chosen to be among the leading countries of the world in all things and all matters. He stressed the Iranian revolutionary regime's determination to conquer many mountains, particularly with regard to sciences and technology, and pointed at the 7,000-kilometer range of the IRGC's UAVs that can reach beyond Europe.
The following are his statements at the ceremony:
"The Greatness Of Every People And The Character Of Every Society Depends On The Breadth Of Its Aspirations And The Greatness Of Its Deeds"
"Reaching the top is always hard work. It is difficult to ascend to the heights, but no country and no people will attain the peaks of progress and prestige without taking difficult paths.
"A nation will not grow until it adopts great aspirations. The greatness of every people and the character of every society depends on the breadth of its aspirations and the greatness of its deeds...
"We are fighting for [our] independence and are in the thick of a great battle. The powerful world decided to prevent us [from attaining] national independence, and we decided to garb our country and our nation in this sacred meaning [i.e. independence] at any cost [for example, by creating our own vaccine].
"They [i.e. the West], who talk about democracy and progress in the world, want our sick children to die in their mothers' arms. Their plan for our nation is poverty, weakness, disease, and disintegration, and that is why they are not allowing us to transfer funds for medicines and vaccinations, and are not allowing us to interact with the world.
"We Decided To Be One Of The Leading Countries In The World In Every Phenomenon"
"We are as great as our goals. A nation that successfully creates such great respect in the depths of a technological and economic siege [against it] is an exceptional nation.
"With the spread of the coronavirus, and the theft of masks by the superpowers, no masks could be found. The world imagined that we would collapse, never to rise again, but Islam and the rule of the jurisprudent [of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] dawned, and the logic of the Quran came up on the agenda, and we all pulled together and helped one another...
"We decided to be one of the leading countries in the world in every phenomenon, and today we are among the leading countries in the world in many areas. We have broad-body UAVs that fly 7,000 km and land anywhere.
"We are proud that today is a divine day, and the day of our will. We are men of the difficult arenas, and we say to the entire world that we will not leave the arena. We know that we will ultimately break all the solid barriers of the siege by technological and scientific means. We are giving these vaccinations to the poor in other countries, and our dear people can be certain that they will see the banners of hope raised more than ever."[1]
[1] Tasnim (Iran), June 27, 2021.
