Iran Blasts Israel Ahead of Biden Trip, Suggests ‘Arab NATO’ Initiative Doomed to Fail

19:05 GMT, 12 July 2022
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Ilya Tsukanov
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The Islamic Republic and the Jewish State have waged an unrelenting, decades-long campaign of mostly covert violence and propaganda against one another, with Israel assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotaging industry, and Iran providing weapons support to Tel Aviv’s regional adversaries, including both state and non-state actors.
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Israel is the “main source” of instability and a driver of terrorism in the Middle East, and the “full support” that Washington continues to provide to Tel Aviv belies US claims of seeking peace for the region, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani has said.

“The Zionist regime is the main source of instability and a major driver of the spread of organized terrorism in the region. The full support of America for the regime is the compelling reason that invalidates the US government’s claims of pacifism,” Kanaani said, responding to an opinion piece penned by Joe Biden in the Washington Post over the weekend in which the US president touted his administration’s efforts to foster regional peace.

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Kanaani suggested that a stable Middle East will only be achieved “if the United States ends its divisive policies among the regional countries, stops the flow of weapons to the region, respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the countries, abandons the policy of unconditional support for the Zionist regime, and ends the policy of Iranophobia.”

Accusing the Biden administration of following his predecessor’s “failed maximum pressure policy,” the spokesperson also dismissed Biden’s comments about the US’s role in fighting regional terrorism, pointing to Washington’s January 2020 assassination of anti-terror commander Qasem Soleimani and the impact it had in strengthening Daesh (ISIS)*, al-Qaeda* and other terror groups.
In separate comments over the weekend, Kanaani warned the US against any plans to increase its presence in the Middle East, saying such a move could have “no other outcome but insecurity, instability and [the] spread of terrorism across the region.”
Commenting on US plans to forge a new regional air defense alliance between Israel and the Gulf oil kingdoms, Kanaani suggested that the US “comes up with such ideas without having a correct understanding of the region’s realities.”
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Arab NATO Doomed

The foreign ministry spokesman’s sentiments were echoed by Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, who accused the US of serving as an “executor” of Israel’s wishes, and called such behavior a “historic and strategic mistake by the American president, which will end up being detrimental to the Biden government before anyone else.”
“All the evidence shows that [Biden’s regional trip] was arranged by the Zionists and that the American president is implementing the programs and projects of the Zionist regime, as the main enemy of the nations of the region, has designed,” Qalibaf alleged.
Separately on Monday, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deputy commander for political affairs Yadollah Javani expressed confidence that US efforts to create an anti-Iranian “Arab NATO” would fail.
“When the United States and the Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia were at the peak of their power, the coalitions that they built to counter the Resistance Front and the Islamic Republic had no other result but failure," Javani said, citing attempts to crush the Houthis in Yemen, and the US-led proxy war in Syria, as examples.

“Despite spending trillions of dollars over these years…everyone saw they were defeated and today, the Resistance Front is more powerful than ever before,” Javani said. “Therefore, it is quite easy to predict the possible fate of the so-called Arab NATO. Compared to past coalitions, the new alliance will be even weaker and lack effectiveness in the face of the Resistance Front and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said.

Iran and Israel cut ties in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, and regularly accuse one another of being the region’s biggest supporter of terrorism, violence, and instability.
Joe Biden will arrive in Israel on Wednesday as part of a much-anticipated regional trip which will also take him to the occupied West Bank and Saudi Arabia. The four-day visit will be his first tour of the region as president.
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* Terrorist groups outlawed in Russia and many other countries.
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