A frightened Khamenei denies Hezbollah, Houthis, et. al. are Iranian proxies - to protect himself from Israel ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

A frightened Khamenei denies Hezbollah, Houthis, et. al. are Iranian proxies - to protect himself from Israel

Iran's Supreme Leader gave a speech Sunday where he denied that Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis were Iranian proxies.

The third point articulated by Imam Khamenei regarding regional developments addressed the psychological and propaganda warfare against Iran, with claims of losing proxy forces within the region.

Emphasizing that the Islamic Republic does not have proxies, he stated, “Yemen, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the PIJ are fighting because they have faith, and the power of faith has brought them to the Resistance field.”

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution underscored that if the Islamic Republic ever wishes to take action, it will not need proxy forces. “Faithful and honorable men in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and, God willing, soon in Syria, are fighting against oppression and the crimes of the imposed Zionist regime. The Islamic Republic is also fighting, and by God's will, we will remove this regime from the region,” he added.

This is obviously a lie. The IRGC "advises" those groups and tells them what to do. Qassem Soleimani, the late leader of the Quds Force which oversees the relationship with these proxies, took credit for the IRGC's contiguous takeover of areas in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran:

The IRGC has expanded the resistance in terms of both quantity and quality. It has expanded the resistance from a geographical territory of 2,000 square kilometers in southern Lebanon to a territory of half a million square kilometers.
...America and the Zionist regime concentrate their efforts on stopping this qualitative expansion. The second point is that the IRGC has created territorial continuity for [the different parts] of the resistance. It has connected Iran to Iraq, Iraq to Syria, and Syria to Lebanon.

Iran's IRGC directs their actions. That's pretty much the definition of them being proxies.

The reason Khamenei has publicly maintained this fiction that there are no proxies is because he doesn't want Israel to cut off the head of the octopus but to waste time with the tentacles. He knows that Iran's ability to directly attack Israel, while dangerous, is not nearly as lethal as Israel's response could be.

His denial of proxies, and claims that Iran can attack Israel directly without proxies, is bravado - and the clearest indication that he is very scared of an attack by Israel. He has been solemnly promising a massive response to the Israeli airstrikes from late October but nothing has happened, and the only reason is fear of what would happen next.