TEHRAN — Imam Abdul Alim Musa (Clarence Reams), the director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington D.C., believes that the policy that the new rulers in the Saudi kingdom has adopted is “suicidal”.

“Saudi Arabia has built a road to its own destruction,” Alim Musa, an African-American Muslim activist, said in an interview with the Mehr news agency and Tehran Times.

Below is an excerpt of the interview:

Q: No doubt is being left that Saudi Arabia is behind the emergence of extremist groups such as Daesh. Also Saudi Arabia has been destroying Yemen’s infrastructure in a nearly year-long attacks on the poor country. How should these miseries be brought to an end? And what should be done?

A: Allah is on our side. I’ll give you some examples as to why we are now in a good shape. First of all for many years the Islamic Republic was on one side and everybody else on the other. During the (8-year Iran-Iraq) war (Iran was suffering from) sanctions, boycotts, political isolation, its assets were frozen, Egyptian pilots helped Saddam, Saudi Arabia sent money to Iraq, Kuwait sent money to Saddam, all helped Saddam.

Saddam had everybody on his side. Right now in Yemen, the richest Arab country in the world is killing and bombing the cities; neither the UN nor any other organization says anything; they do a little talk but nothing happens. What’s happening in Palestine is the same thing.

But Saudi Arabia has built a road to its own destruction. Saudi Arabian policy is incoherent. Everything that it does now is suicidal. Dropping the gas price, the oil price, spending billions on weapons in Europe, and giving weapons to Daesh all are suicidal. Saudi Arabia is dropping oil prices to try to choke Iran and some other countries. But it’s choking itself.

Earlier, (during the Iran-Iraq war) it was Iran by itself. All the world was against it. Now we have a new alliance in the region and it’s different than before. Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Russia have formed an alliance. So today there is a balance of power. We feel that Daesh is so obnoxious. They behave so badly that nobody likes them. In the West Iran used to be public enemy number one; now Daesh is (number 1) and number two is Saudi Arabia. Even an American asks: how can Saudi Arabia do that?

In other words Saudi Arabia has built the road to the hellfire for itself. We didn’t do that. Saudi Arabia’s suicidal policy did that. Saudi troops are the most coward troops in the world. They are not going to invade anybody because they’re too soft and cowardly. Yemen is different than Saudi Arabia. Yemenis are poor and tough, but Saudis are fat and cowardly.

The world politics is shifting right now. In Iran it has been shifted from the back to the front. Iran is now the new regional leader. Years ago who would have thought we would be on the same side with Russia? It was impossible. This is because Allah has arranged all these for us. Allah has arranged all these criminal minds to self-destruct.

Daesh has been the entity that unified the world on our side against Saudi Arabia. Everybody is bad with Daesh. Even Daesh don’t like Daesh after a while. They chew themselves up. How do we see Daesh in the world today? We see Daesh as a desperate move of Saudi Arabia to try to deflate the growing power of the Islamic Republic.

Iran is in the rise and you cannot stop it.

So in long run Daesh is a blessing. You know why? Daesh is so insane that it is producing international unity. All of the Muslims are being united against Daesh.

Q: You say that Saudi Arabia has taken the road to self-annihilation. Can you elaborate on it more?

A: Everything in Saudi Arabia’s policy is suicidal. They created Daesh and spent billions of dollars to equip them and train them and they started to kill people and made the whole world hate them. When they hate Daesh they hate those who have created them. Saudi Arabia’s economic policy is also suicidal. They spent a lot of money to buy weapons and drop oil price to destroy and hurt the economy of countries such as Venezuela and Iran.

Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the region is also not good. It sent troops to Bahrain. 80 percent of the people in Bahrain are Shias. They asked for democracy but Saudi Arabia sent troops there to fight against democracy on behalf of the U.S. because their fifth fleet is in Bahrain. And the world sees that.

They suppose that Shias get tired after a while. If you count the number of the Shias in the region you see that they are more than Sunnis and Saudi Arabia is all alone in the region.

Saudi Arabia is bombing innocent people in Yemen. Every time you think about Saudi Arabia you think about bombing Yemen; people dying in hajj and Daesh. Right now people are associating terrorism with Daesh. Not with Hezbollah or Hamas but with Saudi Arabia. Years ago we couldn’t get anybody in the U.S. to talk against Saudi Arabia.

But now Saudi Arabia is going crazy too, for another reason. They are afraid that the U.S. might dump them so they want to wage a war. They feel that the U.S. is on the verge of dumping them and this is why they are so panicked. Saudi Arabia’s policies don’t make any sense.

Q: There are reports that some Muslim youths in the West have joined Daesh. What prompts them to join the group?

A: They are lying. That doesn’t happen. If 10 Americans went to join ISIS nine would be federal agents. People joining ISIS from Europe are MI6. The U.S. is making up the numbers. Those who join the ISIS are sent by the U.S. That’s a psychological warfare.

We just have to be patient and little by little things will get better to our favor. Daesh have already changed the environment.

Q: Can the public opinion realize that Saudi Arabia is manipulating the truth?

A: Do you watch the Western news? They say that Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy is incoherent. It is trying to start a war with Iran. It is making the whole region unlivable. It supports Daesh. It has spent 1.5 billion dollars to buy weapons for Daesh.

God has planned everything for us. The situation we have right now is not planned by us. Saddam fought against Iran. Few years later the U.S. got rid of Saddam. Once Taliban killed twelve Iranian diplomats and two of them got away. At that time Iran wanted to go through a war with Afghanistan, but it didn’t. A few years later here comes the Americans and they got rid of the Taliban for the Iranians.

Q: What is your assessment of the U.S. policy toward Iran all through these years?

A: All of the sanctions and boycotts against Iran didn’t work. The best thing that America has ever done for Iran was the sanctions because they made Iranians independent. Can anybody else in this region build anything? Can Saudi Arabia build anything? But Iran can. Americans did you a favor by sanctions and boycotts. Nobody is this region is independent as Iran. They all are puppets to another person. Iran is not a puppet. The proof of it are the negotiations with 5+1 group. In the both world wars there were no negotiations. In the First World War America and England dictated to Germany because they won. In the Second World War the victors dictated to Japan and Germany because they won, clear and simple. You don’t negotiate when you win; you do when you are dealing with equal people. That they negotiated with Iran is a proof of Iran’s independence.

Q: Is there anything that Iran could do to help Muslims in America?

A: Keep us on the news. Because when people read the news you can get your point out. In America we are isolated from the circuit of speakers. They are controlled by Saudi Arabia. If we had a gathering of 40 or 50 thousand Muslims in America we can speak the truth what we used to do long time ago but as soon as the Saudis started to pay them money they isolated us. So the best thing you can do is to keep our faces on the news. The more you do it the better.

Q: Mr. Musa, let’s turn to presidential election in the United States. Is the electoral system democratic?

A: No, it isn’t. Al Gore won the popular vote many times but in the end Bush became the president. Generally those who have the money and the power and the position will win the election. And it doesn’t make any difference who wins. There are some people we call them policy makers. A president can have maybe five percent of his own ideas if he is lucky. Generally whoever is elected cannot do what they promise. They block everything Obama wants to do.

Everybody thought if we get a black president it will be better. No. It was worse. They can oppress us more because they say you have a black president. We are under more pressure now that we had in the time of George Bush, because if he oppressed us we could say he is a racist. But if Obama oppress us we can’t say anything because they say you have a black president, a black attorney general and blacks in the cabinet and everywhere, how can you be oppressed? Because when you join a system you join a system and you cannot change it. The system is what it is. You can only get in there and cooperate. If a good person gets into the Congress they can just say what is right and go back home. They cannot do anything.

You cannot elect anyone. You cannot solve the problems in the U.S. because billionaires run the country. They arrange everything for them to get more money. That’s all. The middle class used to be very powerful in the U.S. after the Second World War. They used to have two cars and nice houses just like what’s on TV. They don’t have it right now. Now white Americans are poor and mad. That’s why they are trying to appease the white people like Donald Trump. All that’s going in America is a trick. They bring someone. People like to bring those who are mad at the system to like it again. They brought Obama and said all black people who don’t like the system, here’s a black man. But I knew that it was a lie.

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Saudis are afraid that the U.S. might dump them so they want to wage a war.

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You cannot solve the problems in the U.S. because billionaires run the country. They arrange everything for them to get more money. That’s all