Irans supreme leader used a nationally televised address on Friday to predict the downfall of President Donald Trump, even as his own regime faced some of the largest anti-government demonstrations Iran has seen in years.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking while protests against his theocratic rule spread across the country, declared that Trump should know that world tyrants such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza were brought down at the peak of their arrogance. He too will be brought down, casting the American president as the latest in a line of doomed despots.
According to Breitbart, the remarks came amid mounting unrest over economic collapse and political repression, with demonstrators openly denouncing Khamenei and the Islamic Republic itself.
The ayatollah insisted that the regimes power rests on the sacrifice of those killed during the 1979 revolution and subsequent conflicts, warning that it would not yield to domestic dissent. Everyone should know that the Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honorable people, and it will not back down in the face of saboteurs, he proclaimed, dismissing the protesters as enemies of the state rather than citizens demanding accountability.
Initially, Khameneis government had attempted to placate demonstrators by acknowledging grievances over Irans failing economy, ravaged by corruption, sanctions, and mismanagement. By Friday, however, he reverted to the familiar script of blaming foreign conspiracies, branding the protesters as agents of Israel and the United States rather than victims of his own policies.
They want to make [Trump] happy. If he knew how to run a country, he would run his own, Khamenei grumbled, resorting to personal insults instead of addressing the regimes failures. He further urged Iranians to disregard the American president, claiming his hands are stained with the blood of Iranians from the 12-Day War in June 2025, when U.S. airstrikes destroyed uranium centrifuges at three major sites and crippled Tehrans illicit nuclear weapons program.
Even as his security forces moved to crush dissent, Khamenei attempted to rally loyalist youth with a call for discipline and cohesion. He urged them to keep your readiness and your unity, insisting that a united nation will overcome any enemy, a message that rang hollow for many young Iranians facing arrests, beatings, and executions.
Khamenei extended his tirade to the social media platform X, even as his regime throttled and shut down internet access for ordinary citizens to prevent images of the protests from spreading. You can see how theyve besieged a country in Latin America & taken some actions there. They arent even ashamed and explicitly state that this was for oil. For oil! They say theyve done this for oil! he shrieked, accusing Western powers of crude resource-grabbing while ignoring his own governments dependence on illicit oil sales.
Despite his denunciations, Tehran is reportedly poised to profit from regional turmoil, particularly the collapse of narco-terrorist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavezs regime. With Venezuelan crude disrupted, Chinese refineries are expected to turn to Iranian oil to fill the gap, giving Khamenei a potential financial lifeline even as his people risk their lives in the streets demanding freedom and an end to Islamist rule.
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