Following are excerpts from an address by the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, General Qassem Suleimani, delivered on May 25, 2015:
Qassem Suleimani: Mr. Obama, how far is the Al-Asad Airbase, where your planes are stationed, from Ramadi? How many kilometers is it? How can it possibly be that under the pretext of protecting the (Iraqi) nation, you have installed (forces) in that country and formed a coalition, and yet have done nothing?
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This can only mean that you are an accomplice in this plot. This can only mean that you lack any determination to confront that entity (ISIS).
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As human beings, we cannot tolerate it when the nations around us find themselves in dire straits. Islamic evidence supports this as well. We have a religious duty to support them. But there is another important reason: This serves our national interest. By seeking our national interests, we do not seek specific profits. We do not need anything from Iraq, or from any other country. On the contrary, we are helping all of them.
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(ISIS) is a plague. It is a great catastrophe. When a neighbor is afflicted with plague, cholera, or a great catastrophe, what public health measures would we take to protect our people? We would enforce a quarantine on our borders. We would monitor all the people passing through. We would help that country contain that disease, so that it does not pass to our own country. How does ISIS maintain its economy? It is from the oil wells of Kirkuk and of Deir Al-Zor in Syria. To where does it export this oil? They do not export this oil in 20-liter cans. They transport it in oil tankers. It is not that they have just one oil tanker. They have thousands. Where do these tankers go? Underground? Or do they travel above ground, through the land of countries, which are part of your anti-ISIS international coalition?