Iran uses ‘Innocence of Muslims’ to distract from its nuclear program: Urges attacks on U.S. interests around the world

by REZA KAHLILI September 27, 2012

Just hours after news of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the American ambassador and three aides and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Iranian leaders sought to capitalize on the unrest by inciting worldwide riots against America.

The clerics, military and all organizations within the Islamic regime concurred on a plan to channel the anger over a video made in California that demeaned the Prophet Muhammad.

Iran's manipulation of the crisis apparently is working. On Friday, tens of thousands of Muslims violently demonstrated against the video and America in Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Iraq, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Yemen with more than 20 casualties.

The Islamic regime's outrageous reaction to the international crisis was followed up by an equally outrageous statement by Iran's first vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, who said the regime will "track down" those responsible for the film, Mehr news agency reported last week.

Mr. Rahimi's statement recalls the widely condemned action by the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who in 1989 condemned to death the Indian-born British novelist Salman Rushdie for his novel "The Satanic Verses." Khomeini said Mr. Rushdie's depiction of Muhammad was blasphemous.

To underscore the Islamic regime's international misbehavior, an Iranian religious foundation said it was increasing its reward for the killing of Mr. Rushdie, though he had nothing to do with the California video, offering a total of $3.3 million for anyone who carried out Khomeini's death sentence, Agence France-Presse reported.

Meanwhile, Grand Ayatollah Vahid Khorasani attacked Pope Benedict XVI on Friday over the insult to the prophet by saying, "Hey, clueless pope who has chosen silence, answer this: If there was no Koran, then as the Bible and the Torah have it, Jesus the son of Miriam is a bastard and a bastard will be forbidden from the heavens of God, and so the high place of Jesus is due to the existence of the Prophet Muhammad as the last prophet by God."

According to a former intelligence officer of the Revolutionary Guards who has defected to Europe, the events in the Middle East provide an opening for the Islamic regime to divert attention from its illicit nuclear program and deteriorating conditions at home as results of sanctions and delay any attack on its nuclear facilities by Israel.

As long as the uncertainty continues in the Middle East, Iran will consider Israel to be under immense pressure not to take any action that would almost guarantee further instability in the Islamic world, the source concluded.

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