A hardliner politician in Iran has said “We are in a cyberwar against the Zionist enemy,” and everyone should take this into account, ILNA reported on Sunday.

Mansour Haqiqatpur, a self-styled “principlist” or hardliner told ILNA that " We should allow people's hatred of Israel to manifest itself."

He added, “Whether we make agreements or not, our contradictions with Israel will remain in place. We certainly had problems with them and will continue to have,” the former member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds (Qods) Force, turned politician said.

But what reflected the true thinking of hardliners in Iran, loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his ideology was Haqiqatpur’s statement that “If one day we come to feel we have no problems with Israel, that day will signify the decline of the Islamic Republic.”

Since its establishment in 1979, the clerical regime in Iran has kept one policy consistent, and that is its anti-Israel and anti-US ideology, the politician’s statement shows. On many occasions, Iranian officials have called for Israel’s destruction and have marshalled huge resources to build a network of militant allies and proxies to threaten the Jewish state. However, the domestic rationale for this policy is often not understood.

Khamenei almost in every one of his 1,800 speeches since assuming power in 1989 has used the word “the enemy”, meaning first Israel and then the United States. The concept of permanently facing an enemy or enemies justifies the perpetuation of an authoritarian political system that now increasingly resembles a totalitarian regime.

Haqiqatpur went on to say that “We should be ready for an all-out confrontation with soft power, semi hard power and hard power with Israel. The leader of the revolution [Khamenei] has announced a date for Israel’s fall and we should try to meet that deadline.”

A few years ago, Khamenei said Israel must be destroyed in 25 years and the government even set up a countdown clock in Tehran. Many Iranian make fun of the anti-Israel rhetoric and the clock, but the regime remains serious in repeating its threat.

Asked about what the Islamic Republic should do at this point, the former IRGC officer said that everyone should know Iran is in a cyberwar with Israel and all entities and institutions should reinforce their cyber defenses.

Israel is believed to have started a covert war against the Islamic Republic that intensified in July 2020 with a mysterious attack on its top=secret nuclear facility in Natanz where an explosion destroyed a building producing uranium enrichment centrifuges.

The attacks continued with the highly complex assassination of Iran’s top nuclear operative Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, using a remote-controlled heavy gun near Tehran.

Mysterious attacks have continued against nuclear and other sensitive targets. Since May several Revolutionary Guard officials have been killed ot died mysteriously in Iran, prompting officials to accuse Israel of running a covert campaign.

This has led to an unprecedented reshuffling and firing of top-level intelligence officials, including the chief of a special force protecting Khamenei and his family. Top leaders have admitted that Israel has infiltrated Iranian government institutions and have vowed to retaliate by cyberwar and any other means.