The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that Iran’s stability today owes to the Iran’s defense of its borders during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

“The safety of the country today is the result of the sacred defense,” Major General Mohammad Ali Jaffari said of the Iran-Iraq war, which started in 1980 when Then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded the country. The war lasted until 1988.

Jaffari said, “Today, if many countries know Iran to be an island of stability in an insecure region, the reason is the eight years of the sacred defense and the eight months of sedition. We did not permit the enemy to make the country unstable.” "Sedition" is the term used by government officials for the street protests that erupted after the contested 2009 elections.

The invasion of Iraq’s troops into Iranian territory mobilized the country and helped solidify Iran’s belief that if united, it could withstand any enemy — even one like Iraq, which was backed by Western and most Arab countries while revolutionary Iran faced economic and political isolation.