TEHRAN – A senior Iranian military commander says Israel lacks the capability to fight without backing from NATO and the United States, describing any potential confrontation as a struggle against “global arrogance.”
Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, deputy chief of the Iranian Army, made the remarks during an interview marking Sacred Defense Week, which commemorates the eight-year war imposed on Iran by Iraq in the 1980s.
Referencing both the 1980s conflict with Iraq and what he described as a recent U.S.-Israeli aggression in June, Sayyari said the enemy’s goal in both cases was to defeat the Islamic Revolution and threaten Iran’s territorial integrity.
He said Israel was unable to fight independently and that during the 12-day war in June, Iran inflicted “significant blows” on the Israeli regime, which were censored from global media, leaving Israel “crushed,” quoting Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
Sayyari further said that in both wars, the enemy relied on proxy forces — Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during the 1980s war and the “Zionist regime” today.
He asserted that global powers supported these proxies, with the East and West backing Saddam in the past and NATO and “global arrogance” currently supporting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“These similarities show that even today, global arrogance stands before us. It is our pride that if we fight, we fight against arrogance, not against small enemies,” Sayyari said.
He added that following the Iran-Iraq war, the enemy turned to sanctions, soft war, cognitive warfare, and cultural invasion aimed at weakening Iran’s people and armed forces.
“But our nation stood firm against arrogance and remained victorious, just as they stood firm and were victorious during the Sacred Defense era,” he said.