Recently, a conservative news website posted the remarks of “The secretary of the ‎Esteshhadiyoon [martyrdom-seekers] group” which says, “We are in the process of ‎training and launching a martyrdom-seeker brigade … The training is mostly in the real ‎of the spiritual and psychological to confront death ... We do not engage in any form of ‎military training. The specific point in time when the Esteshhadiyoon members enter the ‎field is the last and final phase because initially the armed forces (the Artesh and the ‎Passdaran), who hold the primary responsibility for defending the country, will do their ‎job and only after they have completed their work we will enter the field” (see ‎Fardanews, November 25, 2007).‎

What these remarks and announcements mean is that there is a specific suicide brigade ‎which is acquiring the “psychological” readiness for a “final phase”, which comes after ‎the armed forces of Iran have “completed” their job, after which it is the turn of the ‎volunteer suicide forces to enter the battle field without “any form of military training.”‎

This is the simple view that some of the staunchest supporters of Ahmadinejad’s ‎administration have about the future of the country and concept of defense of the ‎homeland. They speak about a time when the country and its armed forces have been ‎destroyed, resorting to civilians’ suicide operations, as if they are talking about the ‎victory or defeat of a football game, not a country or a nation.‎

The fact is that as international pressure on Iran has been increasing over the past few ‎years because of the country’s controversial nuclear policies, such notices too have been ‎on the rise. The unfortunate aspect of this is that some of the spokespeople of the fanatic ‎groups associated with the government - who incidentally are not accountable to any ‎official authority – not only speak of war as if it were just another normal issue around ‎the corner, but present costly, albeit irresponsible, offense strategies as well, which are ‎based on unknown sources. These remarks have become so absurd that the final ‎declaration of a national seminar organized by the members and interlocutors of “Ansar-e ‎Hezbollah” group (which has until today denied being armed while its most important ‎actions have been the beating up of students, carried out with the assurances of having ‎judicial and security immune) read, “Ansare Hezbollah explicitly considers any official ‎representative of the US government to represent terrorism, and calls all Hezbollah cells ‎to engage in a physical confrontation to either kill him or take him prisoner, while at the ‎same declaring its readiness to combat these criminals” (Fars News Agency, October 28, ‎‎2007).‎

More instructive is the fact that the so-called “Hezbollah of Iran” group welcomes a war ‎with the United States. It says, “The identification of forces loyal to the revolution, vs. ‎the incompetent leaders … and the purge of infiltrators is possible only within the context ‎of a war, thus making war a necessity. The restoration of the Shiite image in Islam and ‎attracting Muslims to Shiism while at the same time discrediting pseudo-revolutionaries ‎such as Al Qaeda cannot take place unless there is a war” (Information Center for ‎Hezbollah of Iran, September 30, 2007). These remarks alarmingly indicate how a group ‎that is blindly supportive of the current administration in Tehran is eager for a war - with ‎complete disregard of the consequences on Iran - so that it can accomplish its goals of ‎settling scores with “infiltrators”, win the image battle with Al Qaeda, etc. ‎

An important point over the vocal propaganda activities of “Hezbollah of Iran” is that ‎despite all the negative consequences of their statements and actions outside Iran, these ‎groups are not in any sense the “men of war” that they portray to be.‎

During the 33 day conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, these groups sloganeered ‎in front of TV cameras for a whole month and registered volunteers for suicide attack. ‎Hezbollah of Iran announced that, “Seyed Mohammad Bagher Kharazi, the head of the ‎group would soon arrive in Lebanon, along with his supporters to be in touch with the ‎realities there. Some 2,500 individuals who had announced their absolute readiness for ‎suicide operations had registered through the channels connected to Hezbollah of Iran, ‎and currently the individuals are ready for dispatch, awaiting the orders of the Supreme ‎Leader” (ILNA news agency, July 25, 2006). But the climax of all of this hoola baloo ‎was that on the final count, only 27 individuals dispatched for suicide operations in ‎Lebanon, according to the statement of the group dated July 28, 2006 which was ‎distributed to the media. (It is puzzling why would a group that really intended to engage ‎in covert suicide attacks publicly announce its intentions to the whole world!) At the end, ‎none of those 27 individuals either engaged in any military operations. What are ‎interesting are the words of the representative of Lebanese Hezbollah in Iran who said, in ‎response to a question from these very volunteers desiring to go to Lebanon, “we have no ‎need for untrained forces” (Javan, July 28, 2006). Still more interesting are the remarks ‎of the Baseej (Iranian famous paramilitary group) commander who said the following ‎regarding the Esteshhadiyoon’s claims and activities in dispatching suicide volunteers to ‎Lebanon: “These are propaganda measures. Our youth have no need for these artificial ‎atmospherics in the realm of defending the country or the revolution” (ISNA, July 21, ‎‎2006). The travesty becomes even clearer when one notes that one of the leading ‎organizers of this propaganda exercise is an individual closely tied to the sale of Iranian ‎oil abroad (Baztab website, August 29, 2006)…. And these individuals most likely have ‎vested interests in increasing the price of oil through any means (which includes ‎militarizing the region and heightening the war propaganda). ‎

When we read through the instructive story of dispatching 27 volunteers to help Lebanese ‎Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 after a full month of campaigning, and compares it with ‎the words of the Esteshhadiyoon’s remarks of today regarding entering the field after the ‎army has competed its job, only one observation remains: The way in which Mr. ‎Ahmadinejad has put the fate of Iran in the hands of the childish games of the most ‎irresponsible and ignorant circles in Iranian society. And similar to their claims to ‎perform suicide operations, these groups have already imposed the heavy costs of their ‎propaganda efforts onto millions of Iranian women, men and children. And on the day of ‎the real events that may take place, one can be certain that only a handful of these ‎amateur actors, whose only talent is to play in front of the TV cameras, will show up to ‎turn words into deeds.‎