September 22, 2020 will mark 40 years of the Iraqi-imposed war on Iran. Iraq had the backing of the entire world while Islamic Iran defended itself alone. After eight years of valiant resistance, the self-sacrificing people of Iran saved the revolution by defeating the international conspiracy.
This is the second part of Zafar Bangash’s article on “change”; the first part was published in the October 2016 issue of Crescent International, concluding with outlining some of the qualities of muttaqi leadership.
3The months of August and September highlight two anniversaries: the first, Hizbullah’s valiant resistance to Zionist aggression against Lebanon in 2006 and the second Islamic Iran’s eight year long epic defence of the Islamic State against the combined might of kufr emanating through Ba‘thist Iraq.
This writer remembers the time — about 25 years ago — when friendly members of the Islamic Movement would ask: why can’t our brothers in Iran have a more subtle approach and a dodgy political posture when it comes to their official decisions as well as their public relations and information services?
After weeks of dismissing the attacks on their troops as the last gasp of the deposed Ba’athist regime, increasing resistance has forced American officials to admit that something like a real guerrilla movement is gathering momentum in Iraq.
On 8 April 1980, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was executed. His execution aroused no criticism from the West against the Iraqi regime, however, because Sadr had openly supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in Iran and because the West was distracted by the turbulence in Iran that followed the revolution. Governments both in the West and in the region were concerned that the Iranian revolution would be “exported,” and they set about eliminating that threat. When Ayatollah Khomeini called upon Muslims in Iraq to follow the example of the Iranian people and rise up against the corrupt secular Baʿthist socialist regime, they interpreted it as the first step in the spread of Islamic radicalism that would eventually lead to the destabilization of the whole region.
