Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the deputy IRGC Commander for Cultural and Social Affairs, said in a speech that aired on Hamoon TV (Iran) on March 12, 2019 that Iran has been on a constant rise while the United States has been in a constant decline since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. General Naqdi, who was speaking at the city of Konarak, cited America's current debt and budget deficit, saying that America's economic collapse has passed the point of no return. He added that the same is true for the Zionists. Naqdi said that another indication that the U.S. is in decline is that people are now willing to attack and kill U.S. Marines, such as in the case of attacks against Marines in Beirut. He said: "Being real men is to kill U.S. Marines despite all their intelligence means." Naqdi also claimed that the U.S. has conspired to give takfiri organizations a mission to take Muslim youth that want to wage Jihad and to turn them against Shiites and other Muslims.
Following are excerpts:
General Mohammad Reza Naqdi: If the Prophet Moses once took the Israelites through the sea… In the Islamic Revolution and in the past 40 years, the leadership of the Revolution has taken the people through the sea 100 times. It won, and it has saved the people from Pharaoh. In the past 40 years, we have constantly been victorious against America. America has constantly been defeated. It has been in constant collapse, and the Islamic Republic has constantly been on the rise in those 40 years. Look at all that has happened: The terrorism, the cases of unrest, the coups d'état, the economic sanctions, the cultural invasions, the acts of terrorism… Ultimately, it has been the Iranian people that have had the upper hand. Compare America of 1979 to America of 2019. See what is happening. In 2019, the U.S. has a Gross External Debt of $22 trillion, and a budget deficit of $1 trillion. This is the situation in America. But what was the situation [in 1979] when the Revolution won? The U.S. had a surplus and reserves of $1 trillion. The Americans used to take ships filled with wheat to the Pacific Ocean, and pour the wheat into the sea in order to keep the price of wheat stable. And today? Today, there are 40 million hungry people in America. Run a search on the Internet and check out the external debt counter of the U.S. counter bank. Compare each day to the day before. The debt grows by $2.5 billion each and every day. The economic collapse of the U.S. is completely past the point of no return. The same is true of the Zionists. Where were they then and where are they now? When the U.S. President would travel to another country, he used to sit in a car with the roof open, and he would wave at the cheering people. The women would throw flowers at him. The children and students would wave at him with American flags. Today, the U.S. President does not dare ride not only a car with an open roof… He would not even dare enter any capital city in a bulletproof armored car.
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Who would have dared to kill U.S. Marines? When American marines took over Beirut, Lebanese youth killed 450 of them in a single operation. This is what being real men means. Killing a few people in a market in secret is not what real men do. Being real men is to kill U.S. Marines despite all their intelligence means. When they passed near our area in the Persian Gulf, our guys in the Basij and the IRGC captured the U.S. Marines like mice. On another occasion, they did the same thing to English marines. None of them dared to do anything.
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We have defeated them on all fronts. Did you see how our guys capture their marines? The marines peed in their pants in the Persian Gulf. Look at the films, you can see it there. The English marines peed in their pants. They see that you cannot fight the Iranians, the Afghans, the Lebanese, the Palestinians… You cannot fight people who believe in God. So what do they do? They do two things and two things only. First, they destroy their faith. How? With liquor, with drugs, with perverted movies, with immoral shows… They ensnare the youth and destroy their faith.
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In the Islamic world, following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, many young people prepared for Jihad against America and Israel. But they conspired and took over the leadership of those youth. They said to them: "You want to wage Jihad? Fine. The Shiites come before the Zionists. The Shiites are your main enemies. Kill them first." Thousands of youth across the world of Islam were ready to liberate Palestine, but they diverted the struggle against the Muslims themselves. This is the mission that the Americans dictated to the takfiris, and many have fallen into this trap. What is missing? Which prominent reliable Sunni cleric issued such a fatwa? None! The fatwa came from the CIA.