December 2015
Qassem Suleimani is the commander of the Iranian regime’s Revolutionary Guards (extraterritorial) Quds Force and his main responsibility is to dispatch IRGC members to countries across the region, such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and …, recruiting mercenary agents from these countries, and providing training, arms and organization for these forces in order to carry out terrorist attacks. Qassem Suleimani has in recent years been very active in his commuting between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, commanding and organizing the wars in these countries. He is a main element in the Iranian regime’s export of terrorism to Middle East countries and is blacklisted in the United States’ terrorist list.
On November 25th, 2015 the AFP wired news reports indicated Suleimani had been wounded in clashes south of Aleppo. Other news agencies and various sources also confirmed this report. However, during this period the Iranian regime has always denied reports of him being wounded, and even attempted to publish a fake interview in an IRGC-linked media outlet, along with an old image and have him deny being wounded.
Recently the Iranian regime had gone to the limits in advertising and preparing the stage for Qassem Suleimani to deliver a speech on December 7th to mark Students Day in Iran. They installed numerous images and posters of him across Tehran for this very purpose. However, the very hour when he was scheduled to arrive they said he could not show up and cancelled the speech.
The question is that why does the Iranian regime go to such an extent to cover up the fact that Suleimani was wounded, and even aired much propaganda in this regard? And why did it resort to such an embarrassing move afterwards?
The truth is that the story behind the propaganda for Suleimani’s speech at Iran National University may at first seem very hilarious, but is actually a very significant issue to think about and resembles the real truth. It also provides very important lessons to learn from.
First of all, the fact that as the regime had announced from 10 days prior that Qassem Suleimani will be delivering a speech on December 7th, they knew very well and the physicians could have confirmed firmly that any individual who has undergone head and neck surgery cannot recover in 7 to 10 days, and deliver a speech afterwards. To this very day the regime has not been able to publish even an image of him.
However, the question is that when the regime knew quite well that Suleimani would not recover any time soon, why did they advertise to such an extent about his speech at National University? Why did they print posters of him, and over and over again raise the issue about his speech? Did the Iranian regime not think about the consequences, and what they would have to say on the very day? It is quite interesting that even at the beginning of that particular event they said Suleimani would actually show up. This particular scene was specifically shown by the regime’s state-run TV. They had even placed a chair for him on the stage. However, when they sought to justify this matter they resorted to various excuses such as Suleimani wanting to prevent any rumors in this regard and cancelled his speech…
Anyhow, the first point is that the wounding of Qassem Suleimani has such an important impact on the regime’s forces and led to even more defections that the regime was forced to resort to such an embarrassment. This only proves the fact that the mental and spiritual status of the IRGC forces is very much in ruins.
The second subject is that the Iranian regime has a long history in resorting to such lies. Lies that it knows very well will last less than 24 hours. However, it continues to resort to such lies in order dilapidate the status quo and leave everyone confused. However, this time around its audience were its own forces, and this showed that how the regime even ridicules with the minds of its own forces, how they are fooled, and how they are deviously dispatched to Syria and … leading them to their certain deaths. Another very interesting matter worth noting is how the regime relies on a single individual, and it is thus forced to pay such heavy prices for him.
Finally, after all these embarrassments, two days later, on December 9th the Quds Force-associated news agency cited Khamenei’s representative in this force and completely denied the entire matter altogether. He said the news reports regarding Suleimani taking part and arrangements for him to deliver a speech were utter lies and there were no plans for him to deliver speech at all!
Therefore, this entire story, from the beginning to the very end, shows how the crumbling regime in Iran is so utterly weak.