Speech [Armed forces are the guardians and protectors of the country]

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

I find myself unable to express my heartfelt feelings through words! I am hopeful that Iran will benefit greatly from you all since you are still young by the grace of God. And I hope that you will be able to serve your country even further and will achieve greater victories. You have proved to the world that Iran is not what they had imagined it to be and you are victorious as long as your hearts are full of faith. You should strive to increase the light of faith in your hearts and should be committed to supporting Islam and establishing it in this country. If you have a strong commitment you are victorious. I am hopeful that Iran will reap great benefits from the presence of people like you and from the other armed forces upon whom the foundations of the independence of this country lie. You are bound to gain divine support in order to protect the independence of your country. Do not give heed to any false propaganda that is spread from time to time because the aim of people who spread such falsehood is to cause a rift between you and the nation. All their acts are based upon their desire to revert this country to its previous conditions and they are busy working on conspiracies of all kinds. And one of their conspiracies is to inject despair and lassitude among you while Islam holds your services as valuable and precious. All the armed forces should be certain that Islam considers them to be at the helm of affairs. The independence of the country depends upon them. All those who wished to eliminate the army with baseless excuses are still active and could deceive some of our youth. You should be very careful not to allow such people to infiltrate among you and you should counsel the youth who may have fallen prey to their deceptions.

I am hopeful that with the help of your commitment to Islam and the protection of your country you can bolster yourselves against any further damage. May the hands of those who look at Islam, Iran, and their resources with greed be severed and may Islam be established in its purest form! May you succeed in safeguarding your country and may you be graced with divine support! You have all seen how God supports you in your operations and I, too, do not neglect praying for you. May God safeguard you with His will and may He grant success to you and all our commanders! You should, however, make sure to abide by the rules and regulations of the army. Do not get negligent by believing that now that we have brought about a revolution, there is no need to give importance to discipline. No, that's not how it should be. You did bring about a revolution but do not forget that Islam has always stressed upon discipline. And even now, everything should be based upon discipline. Even if a country has ten times the army that we have today, it will never succeed in its activities in the absence of discipline. A small but well-organized group always manages to succeed over a big albeit disorganized one. This should always be kept in mind and hierarchical discipline should be maintained. Your brotherly relations should not give you the undue liberty to disregard hierarchical issues. May all of you win divine approval! May you youth succeed in protecting this country!

May God's peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.