This is my last article for the Tehran Times before the new Persian year arrives. As always, I deeply trust the almighty God’s grace and the pleasing morning of reappearance of Imam Mahdi (MGHHR) to save human being.

The reappearance of Imam Mahdi is a belief of Shia Muslims, especially of the Twelvers, that the twelfth Imam will return at an unspecified time and establish an Islamic state of peace and justice.
 
It is approximately a month that our dear country, similar to over 160 other nations, has been badly hit by the coronavirus outbreak. The entire capacity of the country has been used over the recent weeks to counter the pandemic disease.  

Naturally, the virus-hit countries started utilizing their facilities, capacities and energy to counter the disease. However, Iran’s story is different from others. 

The strong-willed Iranian people are in the last days of a very hard Persian year (March 21, 2019-March 19, 2020) as the enemies embarked on resorting to maximum pressure policy against Iran. They have imposed debilitating sanctions, launched military aggression, and assassinated Iranian military commander among other things. 

COVID-19, which is thought to have originated in Wuhan last December, has spread to more than 162 countries and territories. The global death toll from the virus as of March 17 passed 7,332 with more than 185,387 cases confirmed worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

As of Tuesday, COVID-19 death toll in Iran reached 988. Also, 16,169 Iranians have been confirmed infected with the virus as of this date.

In order to stop the spread of the disease schools and universities have been shut down and cultural and religious gatherings have been cancelled. Also, public places, buses, and underground trains are being regularly disinfected and sanitized.

The resolved Iranian people are countering the pandemic disease under devastating sanctions and psychological warfare, which are intended to intensify maximum pressure against Iran.  

The most important part of the maximum pressure puzzle, according to its evil planners, was nothing but soft psychological operation against Iranians. It was first and foremost intended to create a sense of hopelessness among Iranians and make them surrender.  

Following the ongoing disproportionate war against Iran, the enemies found the coronavirus outbreak as a very good chance to inflict the last losses on our society, however the enemies have been ignoring the almighty God’s power which is superior than any other powers.   

A fast review of subjects on which certain rancorous media outlets have been concentrating over the past weeks will disclose realities:

The mentioned media outlets mocked the developments in Iran after the country’s media reported that Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi contracted coronavirus. However, later they kept mum on the same developments when the British health minister and 10 French parliamentarians were infected with the pandemic disease!

They exaggerated normal shortage of face masks and disinfectant gel in Iran as a catastrophe amid the virus outbreak, but later the same story happened in the U.S. even before the virus outbreak in the country. None on the media outlets paid any attention to that issue!
 
They resorted to media hue and cry that Iran should close its borders, accusing Iran of a main source of spreading the virus. But now we are witnessing that both the U.S. and European countries have closed their borders in order to prevent transition of the virus!

They termed virus-related death of some Iranian political and religious figures as a crisis in the country. However after a short time the Canadian prime minister’s wife, the U.S. defense secretary and his deputy contradicted the COVID-19 and were quarantined! 

They lied that the Grand Ayatollahs in the holy city of Qom had banned fulfilment of healthcare instructions. Later, images of some American priests were released encouraging people to continue handshaking with each other regardless of the virus outbreak!

They employed a person to release a video of the man who had embarked on licking the holy shrine of Masoumeh (AS), the sister of Imam Reza, but later a video went viral showing a Swiss journalist was licking a street’s asphalts!  

They claimed that the Iranians are wrapped in superstitions. However, a TV program released a video from a Christian priest claiming that he enjoys the power of curing people hit by the virus! 

They called Iranians some rumormonger people, but hundreds of photos were released about fight among people in Western countries over panic purchasing of toilet tissues which caused some countries’ officials to offer using water pitchers for clean-up in toilets instead of using toilet tissues!

They claimed that the Iranians are unable to fight coronavirus outbreak and have resorted to praying, but a photo of mass prayers of the U.S. government officials in the White House went viral!

There are too many of such baseless accusations to damage the reputation of the Iranian society.

Undoubtedly, if the European countries as well as the U.S. had experienced only a part of the vast brutal sanctions on Iranians over the last 40 years, they have thus far collapsed. 

It should not be noted that Iran has performed a wide range of anti-coronavirus measures across the country which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) none of the so-called advanced American or European countries could do under such devastating sanctions and pressures.  

The abovementioned evidences are some realities which have so far been pursued by the enemies within the framework of different perceptual war scenarios. 

No one can ignore that self-confidence, rich culture, deep humanitarian and religious beliefs have through the history turned the Iranians into a resilient and pioneering nation. Sacrifices of the country’s medical staff and other walks of the life have assisted the government to counter the pandemic virus more powerfully, but such valuable characteristics have no place in the societies which have been shaped based on ideologies of humanism and materialism. 

Except for Iran, one can’t find any country whose people flock spontaneously to assist their government to overcome such crises. In the U.S. people have been seen in long queues to buy guns fearing from possible chaos following coronavirus outbreak and its consequences.  

This article tries to unearth the enemies’ real objectives of resorting to perceptual war against Iran. They want to push our society into reliance on fabricated statistics and data, comic but humiliating texts and fake news to undermine our society’s unity.   

The article’s last word: These hard days will certainly pass and we will gain again upper-hand, but the world nations should realize that we Iranians by ourselves have stood up against global oppressors. Those countries that were satisfied with maximum pressure on Iran should know that the situation will change and we will gain upper hand again. But we will never do that the Western governments did with our people.

This article will be registered in the history and the history will speak out the article’s message in future! 

MJ/PA