The Sacred Defense Week begins on Shahrivar 31 in the Iranian calendar (September 22 this year), which is the day Iraq invaded Iran and began the imposed war on the country in 1980.
Various units of the Islamic Republic Army, Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Law Enforcement Police and Basij forces each year start nationwide parades in Tehran and other cities across the country to mark the Sacred Defense Week.
The Iranian officials in messages on the occasion of Sacred Defense Week honor the martyrs of 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war against Iran.
September 22 is considered as one of the turning points in the history of the Iranian nation.
37 years ago, Sadaam Hussein, supported by major Western and regional states, launched the massive military invasion against Iran.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has delivered a speech to the Armed Forces as the country begins observing the Sacred Defense Week, September 22, 2017. The Iranian president said Tehran is playing a key role in restoring peace and stability to the region.
“The great nation of Iran has always pursued peace and security in the region and the world, and has always defended the oppressed people of the world. We will defend the downtrodden people of Yemen, Syria, and Palestine whether you like it or not,” he added
Imam Khomeini once said in a historic message in this regard as following: In every day of wartime we’ve received a blessing of which we have taken advantage in every arena. We have exported our revolution to the world in the imposed war.
We have proved our state of being oppressed and the aggressors’ oppression in the war. In the war we have revealed the hidden face of the world devours, we have known our friends and enemies in the war, in the war we have come to this conclusion that we’ve got to stand on our feet, in the war we have broken the pomposity of the two super powers of east and west, in the war we have secured the roots of our fruitful Islamic revolution, we have fertilised the sense of brotherhood and patriotism in each and every one of our people in the war, in the war we showed to the world and in particular to the region’s people that the powers and super powers can be challenged for many long years.
( Sahifeh ye- Imam, vol. 21, P. 283)
The Islamic republic system still was an at early stages that an unwanted war was imposed on. Although the beginner of the war was dictator Saddam, the chief to the Iraq’s Bath party, but in fact the world’s power and oppression practitioners and east and west superpowers and other western countries plus fanatic ones of the region were also behind the war and by their kinds of supports such as financial, logistic and weaponry support rose to confront the Islamic revolution.
Just following the victory of the Islamic revolution, domestics problems, improper economic conditions and the state of being in making and renovation of the political and military structure the trespasser and his supporters foresaw fall of the newly established system in less than a week; but we saw that Iranian nation made an eight years – lasting sound resistance against the aggressors and withstood against the world’s tyrants.
The facts that caused cancellation of the aggressors dream and not coming true of their malicious wish of Iran’s defeat and its new born government were the exact factors that caused triumph of the revolution:
Multilateral presence of people in the arena, the unprecedented leadership of Imam Khomeini, and people and our warrior’s religious beliefs [can be listed as those factors].
Among all the above mentioned factors the role of Imam’s leadership who was directly and prudently commanding the war is special and takes lots of studies and researches. In case of lacking the kind of wise leadership the country that had newly passed a revolution and was challenging kinds of crises of domestics and foreign pressures including embargos and sanctions soon would collapse badly.
The important point in Imam Khomeini’s style of leading and commandership is his respect for expertise ideas and public thoughts so that in spite of being a fully qualified religious expert and skilled in jurisprudence and being political leader of people his reverent never issued an order without consideration of experts, commanders and authorities viewpoints or ignorant to people’s will neither in principles of obligation of defending the country and in expedience of ending the war nor in operational strategies and policies.
The bravery along with intelligence of Imam the holiness in supreme management of the sacred defence could be used as a great example, so that this attitude of his worship in toughest situations would always bring calmness for people and authorities and it also played the most important role in securing and empowering warriors moral in frontlines.
Admitting to the Security Council sanction and end of the war was also one of that special insights and prudence of Imam that with all consideration of the whole situation and all viewpoints he found expedience in truce and ending the war and with this historical act hit various right targets, as well as disarming oppressors and power exercisers from their malice, drawing the world’s attention to our oppression and our will for peace and same time gave way to the country’s progress, renovation, development and growth and enforcement and development of the Islamic revolution’s causes and goals.
The imposed war although brought sever damages and losses for many infrastructural and economic sectors and valuable resources of human but thanking to smart leadership of Imam the holiness it became a cause for this hard experience to also gets added to material and spiritual capitals of the country and to secure and making the country and Islamic revolution invincible against every kind of animosity.
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Imam Khomeini mobilized nation to confront imposed war