Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei Declares Victory Over United States

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, on Thursday proclaimed victory over the United States.

“My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime,” Khamenei posted. “The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing.”

Khamenei entered into a ceasefire with Israel brokered by Trump after 12 days of conflict and the Iranian regime suffering blows to its nuclear program and military infrastructure.

In another tweet, Khamenei claimed that “the Islamic Republic delivered a heavy slap to the U.S.’s face,” a reference to Iran’s missile strike on the U.S. Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council falsely claimed that its attack “destroyed the U.S. air base in Al-Udeid, Qatar.”

The attack involved the launch of 19 missiles, 18 of which were reportedly intercepted. The one missile that landed caused no casualties and resulted in only minimal damage.

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Trump said Iran had provided advance warning to his administration, allowing U.S. personnel to shelter or evacuate in the strike, which has been regarded as a coordinated attack for the regime to save face.

“I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday.

Throughout Israel’s entire 12-day campaign against Iran, dubbed “Operation Rising Lion,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the IDF removed the threat of a significant number of Iranian ballistic missiles, and helped severely harm Iran’s nuclear program.

The IDF eliminated much of Iran’s senior military command and several leading nuclear scientists, destroyed the enrichment facility in Natanz, the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan, and the heavy water installation in Arak, according to Netanyahu. Other laboratories, factories, ballistic missile production facilities, and regime targets were also struck.

Following Israel’s first day of strikes on the Iranian regime, Khamenei responded, promising “severe punishment.”

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“The Zionist regime has opened its dirty and bloody hand to commit a crime in our beloved country at dawn today, and has revealed its evils more than ever before by targeting residential areas,” he said. “This regime must expect severe punishment. The strong hand of the armed forces of the Islamic Republic will not abandon it, God willing.”

Khamenei made similar threats at Trump after the president called for an unconditional surrender before the U.S. took direct action against the regime, including claiming that the “harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.”

Just three days later, the U.S. directly entered the conflict by bombing key Iranian nuclear sites with Tomahawk missiles and 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs carried by B-2 Spirit bombers.

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Khamenei addressed Trump’s calls to surrender again in Thursday’s tweet storm, posting: “The US President stated, ‘Iran must surrender.’ Needless to say, this statement is too big to come out of the US president’s mouth.”

Following the ceasefire, Iranian authorities have begun to crack down internally on its citizens with mass arrests, executions, and military deployments, despite no significant protests taking place during the 12 days the regime was weakened. The security crackdowns are reportedly primarily focused on the Kurdish areas where wide-scale protests have broken out in the past.

Over 705 people have been arrested since the start of the war, according to Iranian rights group HRNA, with many of them being accused of spying for Israel.