American leaders will suffer the same fate as despotic Middle Eastern rulers, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Thursday. Just as revolution brought about regime change in Egypt and Tunisia, the United States will be defeated by an Islamic revolution, Khamenei said at a meeting in Tehran.
“Not only corrupted and despotic rulers but the United States and other world powers with an aggressive nature will finally suffer a defeat by nations and God’s promises will come true,” Khamenei said. “Even the US and other global powers, despite their ruthless and murderous instincts, will eventually be defeated and divine promises will be realized,” the regime-controlled Press TV said in summarizing Khamenei’s remarks.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck a similar tone Thursday while visiting the holy city of Qom. “The human society is moving rapidly forward and today’s hegemonic powers, which are unrivalled in corruption, pillage, massacre and crimes, are already collapsing,” he said.
New information from the battlefield in Afghanistan illustrates one way Iran tries to make this a reality. NATO officials said Wednesday that that they have captured 48 Iranian-made rockets being shipped to the Taliban. British and Afghan troops captured the 122-millimeter rockets, which were being transported in a three-truck convoy, on March 5 near the Iran-Pakistan border.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the weapons were sent by Iran in an effort to bolster the Taliban’s “capability to kill Afghan and ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] soldiers.” The logistics of the shipment were arranged by a Taliban “facilitator” based in Iran. NATO officials said the rockets were significantly more lethal than the 107-millimeter rockets Iran has sent to the Taliban since 2006.
Read more about Iranian support for the Taliban here.