Recent disclosures unveiled that the commander of Iran's Navy said in a televised announcement last autumn that the regime intends to take possession of Antarctica and to establish a military presence at the South Pole.
A translation provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) showed Rear Admiral Shahram Irani of the Iranian Navy stating that the government possesses ownership claims in the Antarctic region and intends to hoist Tehran's national flag and conduct military and scientific activities.
Despite the increasing aggressiveness of the clerical regime in Tehran, the Biden administration authorized the release of $6 billion in sanctions relief to Tehran's leaders before the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Oct. 7, resulting in the massacre of 1,200 individuals in southern Israel.
"The primary reason Iranians would want to go to Antarctica is to get as far away from their oppressive regime as possible," explained Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), specializing in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East.
Speaking to Fox News Digitial, a United States State Department spokesperson said the recent unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian funds held in Qatar would not be used by the regime in Tehran to establish a military base in Antarctica.
"Those funds can only be used to purchase humanitarian goods, meaning food, medicine, medical devices, and agricultural products," the official said.
According to Rubin, Iran commanders "often make aspirational statements to draw attention to themselves, but such buffoonery seldom goes anywhere. If the Iranians want to go to Antarctica to juxtapose their own incompetence with that of every other industrial and scientific power, they should understand: No one will rescue them when they fail, and future generations of polar tourists will instead stumble across their desiccated corpses and abandoned camp to observe the folly and stupidity of the current Iranian regime," he told The Foreign Desk.
Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has sought to export its revolution throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Europe, and East Asia. In February 2023, the U.S. detected aggressive statements from Iran's naval leader, indicating Tehran's intention to establish a military base at the Panama Canal. Iran dispatched two naval vessels to Brazil, hoping to proceed towards the Panama Canal.
Following the Oct. 7 massacre, the Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top officials from the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have called on terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East to support Hamas in their fight against Israel.
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