In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
The kafir Ba`athist regime: the cause of the problems of the Iraqi and Iranian nations
I express my condolences to all the oppressed nations of the world, in general, and the Muslims and the Iraqi and Iranian nations, in particular, on the martyrdom of Ayatullah Sadr. «1»
O my brothers! O our beloved ones who have been expelled from your homelands! As you have faced misery through the Ba`athist regime in Iraq we, too, have faced a similar situation in Iran through the hateful dictatorial government of Muhammad Rida Pahlavi which did with our nation that which even the Mongols did not. They exiled many of our scholars from their homelands and martyred some of them. They dishonored our women and disrespected them. They tortured our youth in their prisons, and as we have heard, they even went to the extent of throwing some of them on scorching pans and sawing off their legs. They exiled many of our clerics, imprisoned them, and disrespected and oppressed them in the most horrible ways. You, too, have been facing the same problems at the hands of the infidel Ba`athist party of Iraq. They arrest your youth for the" crime" of visiting the holy shrine of the Doyen of the Martyrs, Imam Husayn (`a) and dole out the most brutal treatment to them. Your scholars, too, have faced problems at the tyrannical hands of this corrupt and debauched party. We were witness to the atrocities they inflicted upon the late Ayatullah (Muhsin) Hakim. And they also martyred Ayatullah Sadr and his innocent and honorable sister simply because he stood up against their oppression and demanded for the rule of Islam. We have sacrificed martyrs and so have you. We have faced imprisonment and so have you. God Almighty, however, wished to free the Iranian nation from the burdens of oppression and granted them the grace to be able to overpower the tyrannical rule of the day through unity and trust in the Generous God! They threw the Shah out of their country, severed the hands of the big powers from their country, and established a humane, Islamic government in Iran. Oppressive foreign hands have unfortunately been and are still at work to prevent this Islamic government from gaining a foothold and to obstruct the establishment of popular governments in the other Muslim countries. This man (Saddam) who has inflicted great oppression on the Iraqi nation also invaded Iran, and that too the Arab settlements, in order to please the big powers. Under the pretext of pan-Arabism, this embodiment of corruption, inflicted upon the Iranian Arabs, such or perhaps even worse atrocities than what Muhammad Rida inflicted upon the entire Iranian nation. He killed the Iranian Arabs and brought destitution upon them. He has massacred the women and the children of the Iranian Arab settlements and the other regions under the name of pan-Arabism- though actually to gain the pleasure of the Great Satan (America) and its brothers (Britain and France) - to such an extent that the graveyards in Iran have had to be expanded. There is no other remedy but to rely upon God with a unity of expression in order to confront the oppressive rule of this tyrant. While I was in Iran, prior to my exile to Iraq, I was under the impression the armed Arab ethnics of Iraq would stand up against this regime and would put the tyrant in his rightful place. However, after I came to Iraq, I was surprised to find that the religious leader of the Iraqi nation was arrested and carried off from Baghdad to Najaf in the very presence of these ethnics. He was finally martyred helplessly in Najaf.
Struggle and uprising: the only means of liberating the Iraqi nation
If the Iraqi nation wishes to liberate itself from this oppression and the oppressors, it has no choice but to follow in the footsteps of the Iranian nation that got united, and by relying upon God Almighty, empty-handedly brought about the downfall of a tyrannical regime which was much more powerful than Saddam's Ba`athist regime, and terminated a detestable tradition of monarchial rule that had contributed some of the most criminal rulers to the history of the world and instead established the Islamic Republic. It is these nations that should arise and liberate themselves from the clutches of the tyrants through their movements. The nations should not harbor hopes for others to come to their rescue. A nation can liberate itself only by relying upon its own resources. Even though the Iranian nation was not offered help from any other country- Muslim or non-Muslim- while most countries, save a few, even opposed its movement since the Iranian nation was determined to overthrow this detestable dynasty, it emerged victorious. It is impossible to impose something upon a nation that is determined to stand up for a certain cause. The Iraqi nation should not sit helplessly waiting for a foreign hand to come and liberate it. The Iraqi nation believes in Islam and the Holy Qur'an and opposes tyranny and oppression and is averse to decadence. The Iraqi nation should follow the commands of Islam.
The nations should rise up on their own strength and should liberate themselves. The people of Iran and Iraq are not two different nations. They are not even separate from the rest of the Muslims. The Muslims all constitute one nation comprising a population of one billion and having countless natural resources but, unfortunately, these one billion people are under the suppression of the satanic big powers because of the deviation of most of the Islamic governments. And all these vast resources of the Muslim countries are being swallowed up by the big powers. The nations should rise up and liberate themselves from the clutches of their (corrupt) governments as well as the big powers. If the Iranian nation would have sat idly waiting for some foreign hand to come and rescue it, it would have continued to remain suppressed and the despotic Pahlavi regime would still be ruling over it. But the Iranian nation did not wait for anyone else and notwithstanding the fact that all the governments of the East and the West were helping and supporting Muhammad Rida with his powerful internal military forces, when the nation revolted in unity and when all the men and women and the young and the old declared that they did not want this despotic government and the kafir monarchy, none of the foreign powers could then withhold the nation and the internal military forces, too, joined hands with the nation. The Iraqi military forces shall also join in with the nation if the Muslims of Iraq stand up in revolt against this root of all corruptions.
The infidelity of Saddam and the Ba`athist party of Iraq
I read recently that a news agency had quoted the Iraqi government saying that we have always been Muslims and we believe in the One God and in the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad and so we are Muslims and why should you consider us as kafirs! My response to them is that these words came through Ayatullah Hakim (r) even before us. The Iraqi nation is Muslim but the Ba`athist party does not hold any Islamic principles. And this party was denounced by the religious leader of the Iraqi nation itself. And the kind of Islam that Saddam and people like him claim to follow is like Muhammad Rida's Islam. I think Muhammd Rida was probably a Muslim but his actions were worse than a kafir. However, I do not think that Saddam had even the slightest inclination toward Islam. Waging a war against an Islamic country and the Islamic government of Iran is the same as revolting against Islam and is as bad as atheism and kufr. And although this man claims to be a Muslim, he has revolted against Islam. The only crime of our Muslim nation is that it intends to sever the hands of the big powers from its resources and to have an Islamic government. From the very beginning this nation had opted for an Islamic government; it voted for it, and established it. It was for this crime that this nation has been subjected to the criticism and aggression of the big powers.
illusory claims of power
has declared that if his demands are not met, he will destroy our country even further. You have done whatever you could and will continue to do whatever you can and if you could not inflict any further damage it was not because you chose not to do so! If you had the power you would not have stopped from killing all the Muslims of Iran. But you were in an illusion, imagining the Iranian nation to be indifferent, and thought that even if you attacked it, the Iranian army would prove to be weak and incapable. But the Iranian nation and the army caused you to realize that the situation was not as you and the big powers had calculated. And you were curtailed as soon as you attacked the country without any prior warning and you have not succeeded in advancing even a step further. And now you will have to instead step backwards each day. If we and our nation and our army also held the same beliefs as Saddam and if we, too, would have advanced mercilessly even if it were at the cost of the lives of innocent children, women and old men, and if only we did not fear harming the innocent Iraqi civilians, today you would have seen that no one would have been able to come to the rescue of Iraq. But our country and our army adhere to Islamic principles. Our armed forces have the power to fly over the major Iraqi cities and bombard the farthest military centers of Iraq close to the borders with Jordan choosing not to drop a single bomb over any of the Iraqi cities. This country and its armed forces are Islamic. The one who strikes and attacks Muslims and renders the Arab Muslims homeless and destroys an Islamic country simply for being Muslim, cannot be considered a Muslim. No matter how much he may plead to being a Muslim and claim to profess faith [shahadah], it is a pretentious Islam that he is claiming to believe in. This happened even in the early days of Islam and such hypocrites (munafiqin) proved to be worse than even the kuffar.
I appeal to God Almighty to awaken the Muslim nations and to rouse the Iraqi nation to liberate itself from the clutches of these big powers and these embodiments of corruption that are massacring Muslims in the name of Islam and are trampling upon the laws of Islam in the name of Islam and are martyring Islamic scholars in the name of Islam, and that too scholars like Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Sadr, who was a great Muslim thinker and in whom Islam had great hopes for the future! I am hopeful that the books of this great man are read by the Muslims and may God Almighty resurrect him in the company of his great ancestors by His will! And may He resurrect his innocent sister in the company of her great ancestors! And I am hopeful that the Muslim nations shall rise and sever the hands of the big powers from their countries.
May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.