Iran’s Zarif invokes Holocaust to defend arms development

In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif defends his country’s missile development program by employing the “never again” slogan used to commemorate the Holocaust.

Zarif points to Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq and threats to take military action against the country’s nuclear program as proof to why Tehran is developing missiles despite wide Western condemnation.

“Having listened to the outdated US mantra of ‘all options are on the table’ for 37 years, our people understand that we need to be prepared to prevent that illegal and absurd threat from ever becoming a reality,” he writes. “The words ‘never again’ resonate with Iranians, too.”

“It is against this backdrop that we develop and test our indigenous defensive capabilities. We have no other choice, as we continue to face major hurdles in fulfilling our military hardware needs from abroad, even as our neighbors procure such hardware in mind-boggling quantities,” he says, apparently referring to Israel and Gulf states.

The US and other countries have sought to punish Iran in recent weeks over ballistic missile tests last month which they say breached a UN convention linked to the nuclear deal. Iran says the tests are allowed under the UN ban, which only covers development of missiles that can carry nuclear weapons,.

The column, which also apparently criticizes Saudi Arabia, comes as Barack Obama is in Saudi Arabia to discuss regional threats as well as Iran, amid an increasingly hot rivalry between Riyadh and Tehran.

“Having spent a staggering amount of their peoples’ petrodollars on weapons-hoarding, these actors are now seeing their literal, and political, fortunes plummet in step with oil prices. Meanwhile, the extremist lost souls they have empowered are no longer terrorizing only others in the region and the wider world but are also biting the very hands that feed them,” he rights, apaprently referring to the Islamic State terror group. “Perplexingly, amid these disturbing developments — including the recent tragedies in Paris and Brussels — the West does not appear to be focused on joining hands to eradicate militant extremism.”