Supreme Leader: Iran`s scientific progress is promising for future

Source: IRNA, 7-9-2007
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said on Monday that the scientific progress made by Iran is an auspicious movement which is promising for the future.
In a meeting with several hundred Iranian students who have ranked top in national and international Olympiad contests, the Supreme Leader said that the scientific movement is a need to make good on backwardness Iran suffered owing to dominance of dictatorial and puppet regimes in Iran from Qajarid era until victory of the Islamic Revolution.
Citing another reason for the scientific movement, the Supreme Leader said that if any nation wants dignity, strength, independence, national identity, security and welfare, it has to build up its scientific capability.
"It is an undeniable reality and the nature of human life." Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iranian nation has been kept away from scientific progress in the past one hundred years and though the situation has changed after victory of the Islamic Revolution, and Iran is currently passing through glorious period, but, there is still a long way ahead to make good on backwardness.
The Supreme Leader said that science brought power for the Western states including the United States and that the US bullying emanates from its scientific capability.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Supreme Leader criticized the US lobbying against Iranian nuclear program and said that it is surprising that those who initiated two World Wars within 20 year-period and committed crimes against humanity in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Kosovo are creating obstacles in the way of Iran`s nuclear program.
"In the past 28 years, Iran has never been initiator of any aggression or military strike. Iran withstood and will withstand the US bullying and will never yield to pressure," the Supreme Leader said.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that certain Western states led by the US got used to taking advantage of their scientific capability for unleashing war and bloodshed.
The Supreme Leader dismissed recent statement of US President George W. Bush as arrogant, lawless and hateful and said that since victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Iranian nation has never feared bullying of the arrogant and drunken leaders of the West and will give wise response to them.
"Their arrogance and reliance on power have got them entangled in quagmire further day by day, hastening their ultimate collapse."