TEHRAN, Feb 18 : Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared that the US will never succeed in overthrowing the Islamic Republic, warning that even the most powerful military forces can suffer devastating setbacks.
Speaking at a meeting with people from East Azerbaijan province on Tuesday, Khamenei referenced recent remarks by US President Donald Trump, who said Washington had failed for 47 years to eliminate the Islamic Republic.
“The US president said in one of his recent remarks that for 47 years America has been unable to eliminate the Islamic Republic; he complained about it to his own people. For 47 years, America has not been able to eliminate the Islamic Republic. That is a good admission,” Khamenei said.
“I say: You, too, will not be able to do this.”
His comments came days after Trump suggested that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen”, voicing scepticism about the prospects for successful negotiations.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” Trump said.
Khamenei also addressed Trump’s repeated assertions that the US military is the strongest in the world.
“The strongest army in the world may at times receive such a slap that it cannot rise,” he said.
“They keep saying we have sent an aircraft carrier toward Iran. Very well, an aircraft carrier is a dangerous device, but more dangerous than the carrier is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.”
Khamenei also addressed Trump’s repeated assertions of the US military being the strongest in the world.
“The strongest army in the world may at times receive such a slap that it cannot rise,” he said.
“They keep saying we have sent an aircraft carrier toward Iran. Very well, an aircraft carrier is a dangerous device, but more dangerous than the carrier is the weapon that can send it to the bottom of the sea.”
His remarks come amid heightened rhetoric between Tehran and Washington over military deployments and regional security, as a new round of indirect negotiations took place in Oman.
Khamenei mocked the US threats, and said the preconditions reflected an attempt to dominate Iran. “These statements by the US president, sometimes threatening, sometimes saying this must be done or that must not be done, mean they seek domination over the Iranian nation,” he said.
“Iran will not pledge allegiance to corrupt leaders currently in power in the United States.”
Referring to nuclear talks, he added “They say let us negotiate about your nuclear energy, and the result of the negotiation should be that you do not have this energy. If a negotiation is to take place, and there is no place for negotiation, determining its result in advance is wrong and foolish.”
He described the setting of conditions before dialogue as an “absurd” demand by US presidents and some senators.
In the same speech, Khamenei addressed the recent wave of nationwide protests, saying those killed in January’s unrest were being mourned as martyrs.
“Blood was shed. We are grieving. I say we are in mourning for the blood that was shed,” he said, while distinguishing between different categories of those who died.
Security forces responded to the demonstrations with lethal force, mass arrests and communication blackouts. Rights groups have reported that at least 36,500 people were killed in the unrest, while authorities have acknowledged a far lower figure of about 3,117.
Amnesty International said security forces moved swiftly after the killings to impose sweeping controls aimed at silencing survivors, intimidating victims’ families and preventing documentation of what it described as unlawful mass killings carried out to crush a popular uprising.
Measures cited by the group included arbitrary mass arrests, enforced disappearances, bans on gatherings, night-time curfews, a near-total internet blackout and the deployment of heavily armed patrols across cities and inter-city roads.
Khamenei, however, framed the unrest as an externally driven plot and divided those killed into three groups. The first, he said, were “defenders of security”- including police, Basij and Revolutionary Guards members – whom he described as “among the greatest martyrs.”
A second group, he said, consisted of bystanders. “When turmoil breaks out in a city, innocent people walking toward their workplace or their homes are also killed,” he said, adding that they too should be regarded as martyrs because their deaths occurred during what he called “the enemy’s sedition.”
A third group comprised those he described as misled participants. “They were deceived, inexperienced? they are also ours; they are our children,” he said, adding that some later expressed regret in letters to him. Officials were right, he said, to count those killed from this group as martyrs as well.
“Therefore, the circle of our fallen whom we count as martyrs is a wide one,” he said, excluding only what he termed “the ringleaders and those who took money and weapons from the enemy.”
Khamenei concluded by offering prayers for mercy and forgiveness for those he described as misled, reiterating that the unrest was not a domestic protest movement but an enemy-orchestrated attempt to destabilise the Islamic Republic. (UNI)
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