Iranian state media reported this week on statements made by Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi in which the powerful Iranian official – Naqdi is the commander of the Basij paramilitary force – explained the sources of regional instability and how to solve them. A lot, it turns out, hangs on the Jewish state’s existence and elimination:

He noted that regional tranquility is achieved only by the destruction of Israel… “The Zionist regime is not only involved in criminal acts and killing of the oppressed Muslims, the plots hatched in the Muslim countries are masterminded and directed by Israel, but (the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements) Hezbollah and Hamas have created a solid block against it and now the Egyptian people’s revolution is completing this (axis of) resistance,” he added.

Lame duck Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad often calls for the eradication of the Jewish state, as do other Iranian officials.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last year that Israel is a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”

Last March the regime held anniversary celebrations for the first “Beit al Moghaddas” operation, which saw Iran take the city of Khorramshahr from Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. Esmail Kowsari, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Parliamentary Commission, spoke on the occasion and explained that the operation was actually aimed at Israel:

“All of the [goals] of these slogans were to reach [The Dome of the Rock] and destroy Israel; the Israel that was the mastermind of domination and [Global] Arrogance, and Imam [Khomeini] knew that if we hit the Zionists we would hit one of their pillars of Arrogance and their masterminds. Ultimately Beit al Moghaddas caused the liberation of Khorramshahr in its first stages. But we [must] not forget that the operation continues and just as the Imam introduced Quds and Israel’s destruction as the goal and said the path to Quds is through Karbala [Iraq], today the goals of that operation…must continue.”

[Photo: PressTVGlobalNews / Youtube]