You know Iran -- the authoritarian Islamic republic for which the Obama administration bent over backwards despite it being hell-bent on the destruction of the U.S. and Israel?

Well, to thank the U.S. for its generosity, deputy commander of Iran’s Quds Force, Gen. Ismail Ghaani, recently boasted that his men have killed more Americans than U.S. military forces have killed Iranian soldiers. The Washington Times reports:

Brig. Gen. Ismail Ghaani was referring to Iran’s major intervention in the Iraq war to supply Shiite militias with supercharged explosives that could penetrate U.S. armored vehicles. The Pentagon has estimated the Quds Force, an arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, killed 500 Americans that way.

“Americans have suffered more losses from us then we have suffered losses from them,” Gen. Ghaani said, according to an article by Admad Majidyar, director of the Iran Observed Project at the Middle East Institute.

Mr. Majidyar wrote that the boasting came at a ceremony honoring the “martyred of the defenders of shrines” — Iran’s term for the militias it financed and trained in Iraq to fight the Islamic State and in Syria to support President Bashar Assad.

An Iranian opposition group has accused Iran of committing atrocities in Syria, particularly in the city of Aleppo, where thousands died under constant attacks by Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces.

“This, of course, is not only a confession but also outright bragging about how the Quds Force murdered Americans in Iraq,” said Michael Rubin, a Middle East analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “It was the Quds Force, after all, that smuggled in explosively formed, armor-penetrating projectiles into Iraq for insurgents to incorporate in improved explosive devices.

Ghaani then invoked 9/11 conspiracy theories: 

“America, under the pretext of Sept. 11 attacks, which it carried out itself, invaded Afghanistan and mobilized young Muslims and deployed them to Afghanistan so that they can later attack Iran,” he said.

The Quds Force leader contended that the U.S. has spent $6 trillion to curtail Iran, but failed.

The ceremony occurred amid Iranian expansion in the region, military moves financed in part by the 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. The Obama administration lifted economic sanctions that freed billions of dollars in frozen assets and directly delivered $1.4 billion in cash.

The Obama administration left lasting damage for us across the Middle East that will be difficult to reverse. For eight years, our enemies have been propped up and emboldened to such a degree that disrespect for the U.S. and open threats are now the norm. We can only hope the Trump administration's tough stance on those bent on America's destruction will begin to remedy the damage done.