The “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in an address on Wednesday that the common chant of “Death to America” in his country is “not just a slogan – it is a policy,” one his regime intended to bring to fruition.
Khamenei was reportedly delivering remarks on Iranian regime-controlled television regarding the ongoing conflict between the nation of Israel and the Hamas genocidal terrorist organization, which Iran funds to the tune of tens of millions of dollars a year. The Iranian regime has enthusiastically embraced Hamas following its harrowing October 7 terrorist attack against civilians in Israel, which featured door-to-door slaughters of entire families in their homes, the mass killing, torture, and rape of attendees at a peace music festival, and evidence of gruesome killings of infants as young as newborns. The “al-Aqsa flood,” as Hamas branded its killings that day, took the lives of more than 1,200 people in Israel; another 250 are believed to still be held hostage by Hamas in its stronghold of Gaza.
On the night of October 7, in response to the news of mass death, the Iranian regime staged a massive street party in the heart of Tehran, featuring free sweets and lemonade, a fireworks display, and loud chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Iranian officials have since falsely claimed that Israel as a state has “totally collapsed” and that Hamas’s victims, even the babies, were “not civilians.”
“Some officials in certain countries, who have spoken with our officials, have protested in defense of the Zionist occupiers as to why Palestinians have killed civilians,” Khamenei remarked in statements following the attack. “Firstly, this statement is contrary to the truth. Those who live in [Israeli] settlements are not civilians. They are all armed.”
Khamenei did not clarify how it is possible for the infants among the victims to be “armed.”
Khamenei expanded his hateful remarks against Israel on Wednesday by declaring that, given America’s longstanding support for that country, “Death to America” was a core goal of his regime’s foreign policy.
“The situation between America and Iran is this: When you chant ‘Death to America!’ it is not just a slogan – it is a policy,” Khamenei said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “I have stated the reasons previously. For many years, from the 1940s to the 1970s – that is 30 years – the Americans did everything they could do against the Iranian nation.”
“They hit Iran in any way they could – financially, economically, politically, scientifically, and morally,” the elderly despot continued.
“If it were not for America’s support, if it were not for the support of U.S. weapons, the corrupt and artificial Zionist regime [Israel] would have been destroyed in the first week,” Khamenei claimed. “It would have collapsed. The Americans are behind this:”
Kamenei’s concession that Israel still exists contradicts comments made by his underlings in the aftermath of the Hamas terror spree, in which they recommended to the United States that it sever all its ties with Israel as the latter’s government had “totally collapsed.”
“We do encourage the US to abandon its absolute total support of the Israeli regime. According to information we have inside the region, both the security and political systems of Israel have totally collapsed,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in an interview with NPR last week. “Right now, the only thing functional in Israel is their war machine that is also being run and controlled and managed by the US.”
Khamenei’s “Death to America” comments also directly contradict his own prior assurances that “Death to America” was, indeed, just a slogan.
“‘Death to America’ means death to [former President Donald] Trump, [national security adviser] John Bolton, and [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo,” Khamenei said in 2019. “It means death to American rulers. It means death to the few people running that country. We have nothing against the American nation.”
From left, National Security Adviser John Bolton, accompanied by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and President Donald Trump, speaks before Trump signs a National Security Presidential Memorandum to launch the “Women’s Global Development and Prosperity” Initiative in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2019 (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).
Iran held a “National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance” on Wednesday, a euphemism for anti-American and anti-Western hatred. In addition to calling for “Death to America,” Khamenei demanded a global embargo on the nation of Israel.
“The world of imperialism has come forward with bombs, military pressure, tragedies, and crime, but you should know that the power of faith will overcome all of these,” Khamenei claimed, according to Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV, adding demands that all Muslim nations “block the export of oil and other commodities to the Zionist regime.”
Iranian leaders have repeatedly celebrated the atrocious Hamas terrorist attack and continued to do so this week for “National Day of Fighting Global Arrogance.” Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri, the head of the Iranian Armed Forces, called the mass killing of children, the elderly, the disabled, and random civilians “valiant, surprising, and unparalleled” in his remarks on Wednesday.
“The [terrorist attack] showed that all the notions that the Zionists and their masters had concocted were absurd and meaningless, and all their false delusion of grandeur fell into pieces with this flawless and precise operation,” Baqeri railed, condemning the alleged “brutality” of “the United States, Europe, and global arrogance.”
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to reflect a revised number on the death toll from the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. The Israeli government estimate of 1,400 was revised to around 1,200, according to Reuters.
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