Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Mohammad Ali Jafari speaking in an interview on Tuesday said in answer to the question if the launching of U.S. military bases in Iraq’s Erbil bill threaten Iran:
"No. The Islamic Republic of Iran has already moved beyond superpowers’ direct threats. We do not think that our enemies would be so rash to fail predicting what consequences a direct threat to Iran will have.”
He added "With the prevailing situations considered, a direct threat is unlikely. They do this rather to support the Iraqi Kurd. That’s why they have settled in Erbil so that they can be able to take effective actions for the Kurds and build their morale.”
He added that many terrorist groups in Syria are still supported by the U.S. and said "U.S. plan for Syria is still the same as before. They are still pursuing the overthrow of the ruling Syrian power. These days they only talk of fighting terrorists only outwardly. But, anyways, considering the national defense power of Syria, we think it is unlikely that the opposition groups will be able to expand themselves.”
Asked about the Amerli operation that broke the terrorist siege on the are and if Iran took part in the operations he said "Amerli is situated in a critical area. Because it is situated in high lands, it provides ISIL with oversight over the small towns around it. But, thank God, they were cleared out and a great operation was carried out by the national defense and Iraqi Army.”
"Iran’s role was limited to thought aid and the conveyance of experience. There was no need for the presence of military forces. The Iraqi Army did the operation with the help of 20 thousand national forces,” he noted.
Jafari pointed out that the IRGC’s mission oversees includes helping revolutionary movements and resistance by oppressed people around the world.
In countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq if there is a need for our help we will do it. If we try to assess the power of the Quds Corps, it would be better to see what overstatements the enemies make of its power; witnessed by how hard they tried to defeat the Syrian ruling power or to wreak havoc in Iraq but they failed. Also, the public resistance in southern Lebanon against the Zionist regime is indicative of the role played by the Quds forces, which is something that everybody knows. But of course the reason why these countries were victorious is their people who have the will to stand up, Jafari maintained.