“We have been facing a war for years, but we just do not feel it,” General Jafari said in a meeting with a group of IRGC commanders in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz.
“What threatens the Islamic Iran today is the soft war, the enemy’s cultural and political war, against us,” he stated.
“We are all responsible today to counter the enemy’s soft war,” the IRGC commander said, adding that cultural problems are the main concern of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has in many occasions raised the alarm at the effects of an extensive soft war the enemies have waged against Iran, saying one of the main objectives is to change the religious and political beliefs of people, particularly the youth.
Back in October 2015, the Leader in a meeting with IRIB officials highlighted the IRIB’s heavy responsibility in the face of the “complicated, colossal and critical” arena of the enemy’s soft war.
Unlike the actual and hard warfare, soft war is impalpable and the target society may not feel the attack even after the enemy strikes a blow, Ayatollah Khamenei warned.
While hard war provokes public sentiments and strengthens national unity, soft war kills the other side’s motives and brings about division, the Leader explained.
Imam Khamenei also described the enemy’s main objective in the soft war against Iran as a “metamorphosis of the Islamic Republic of Iran” by changing its nature and maintaining its facade.
In the enemy’s soft war, it does not matter that the title “Islamic Republic” would remain intact or even a cleric leads the country, but what matters is that Iran would serve the interests of the US, Zionism and the global power network, the Leader explained.
Ayatollah Khamenei also cautioned against the plots that aim to influence the people’s “religious, political and cultural beliefs” in the soft war, referring to the Iranian younger generation and intelligentsia as the main targets in the onslaught.
“The main and ultimate objective of the engineered soft war is the internal breakup and metamorphosis of the Islamic Republic through a change in the beliefs and weakening the people’s faith, particularly those of the youth,” Ayatollah Khamenei underlined.
