Politics & Power Quote by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

A politician’s most cutting weapon is often symmetry, and Rafsanjani deploys it here with surgical intent: “both sides,” “car bombs” versus “other bombs,” atrocities as a bipartisan export. The phrasing isn’t just moral condemnation; it’s a reframing of the Iraq War narrative at a moment when U.S. officials wanted a clean distinction between “terrorists” and “liberators.” By stacking Zarqawi and American troops in the same sentence, Rafsanjani drags the superpower down to the level of the insurgent, then lets the parallelism do the dirty work.

The line “other bombs” is deliberately vague, almost shrug-like, which makes it sharper: everyone knows what “precision” can look like from the ground. He’s not arguing tactics; he’s contesting legitimacy. And the final jab - “You also know what they do in the prisons” - is a knowing nod to the era’s defining scandal (Abu Ghraib) without needing to name it. That “you” recruits the listener as a witness, not a student, implying the evidence is already public and damning.

Context matters: Rafsanjani, a central figure in Iran’s post-revolution power structure, is speaking from a neighboring state with strategic and ideological reasons to discredit the U.S. occupation. But the quote works because it doesn’t rely on Iranian ideology. It leans on widely circulated images and a simple, unsettling calculus: for civilians, the difference between kinds of bombs can feel like a debate between brands, not ethics.