It appears that the Iranian leaders are once again speaking out of both sides of their mouths concerning nuclear proliferation. In the end, however, they just can’t suppress their utter hatred and loathing of all things American, especially President Trump, and it’s absolutely permissible to lie to infidels.
“Death to America”
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made it crystal clear on Saturday in a hate-mongering speech given on Iran’s state-run Channel 1 that he despises President Trump and the United States. He called Trump a liar who brings shame on the American people, to a crowd chanting “Death to America” in the background. Khamenei also accused US leaders of using military power to spread war, which is the exact opposite of what Trump appears to be doing.
“Some of the things the U.S. President said in his recent visit to the region are not even worthy of a response,” Khamenei railed, according to a MEMRI translation of the broadcast. “The level of the things he said is so low that it shames the speaker himself as well as the American people.”
(Video Credit: MEMRI)
“Trump said that he wanted to use power for peace. He is lying,” Khamenei proclaimed concerning Trump’s trip to the Middle East, as the crowd again chanted “Death to America” several more times.
Blame the Great Satan
The Supreme Leader has learned well from American leftists. He deflected, blaming the US for blood spilled in the Middle East, asserting, “[Trump] and other senior officials in the American administration have used power to perpetrate a massacre in Gaza, to stir up war wherever they could, and in order to support their mercenaries.”
That’s really rich considering Iran was behind the massacre of 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and cheered on the rapes, abductions, torture, and murders that occurred that day and after. In fact, Iran is the greatest supporter and financier of terrorism in the Middle East and across the planet.
Khamenei went on with his lies, asking, “When have they ever used power for peace?”
He then vowed that Iran would continue to be a growing threat to the US, Israel, and the world: “We will increase our power and the power of our country every day — whether the enemies like it or not, inshallah [as Allah wills].”
Despite ongoing negotiations, he then called for the expulsion of the United States from the Middle East, “By the efforts of the nations of the region, America should leave the region, and leave it will,” he insisted.
“Death to Israel”
After smearing the Great Satan, he then went after the Little Satan… the State of Israel, calling it “the absolute source of corruption, war, and discord” in the region, and branded the Jewish state a “lethal cancerous tumor” that “has to be uprooted, and it will be uprooted for certain.”
As the Iranian leader spewed that reiterated poison, the crowd chanted, “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” They also decried “hypocrites,” “infidels,” and US-aligned governments.
The rhetoric doesn’t sound much like peace, does it? It also makes it clear that Iran has no intention of stopping uranium enrichment.
Breitbart reported:
Khamenei’s speech underscores the regime’s unchanged hostility toward the United States, even as the Trump administration attempts to explore the viability of a negotiated settlement with Tehran on nuclear and regional de-escalation efforts. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers are urging the administration to demand that Iran fully relinquish its uranium enrichment capacity.
A Threat to Trump and National Security
Despite daydreams of peace with the Mullahs, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) gravely warned of the threat that Iran and its Supreme Leader pose to our national security. Following the craven appeasement policies of both the Obama and Biden administrations, Cruz accused Khamenei of attempting to murder President Trump:
“So, the question is, how can we expect a regime that does all those things and has not abided by anything that’s agreed to, anything that it has promised over the course of the last 15 years, so here we are at the 11th hour,” host Mark Levin stated. “Here we are at the 11th hour trying to deal with this. How can we trust them? Or, better put, we’re not going to trust them. How do we make sure that they do what we tell them they must do?
“Well, listen, we can’t trust them because we know that they lie and they lie over and over and over again,” Cruz responded. “It is worth noting, the Ayatollah right now today is actively trying to murder Donald J. Trump. He has hired hitmen trying to murder the President of the United States. The Ayatollah is also actively trying to murder the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the former National Security Adviser, John Bolton. They have hired hitmen that are targeting former senior U.S. officials and the sitting President of the United States. These are not people who can be trusted, which is why the objective must be full dismantlement, it must be… the centrifuges disassembled, destroyed, taken out. And as President Trump said recently, we can do that either nicely or not so nicely. Nicely, if they agree, and we go in and dismantle them ourselves or not… not so nicely is if Iran refuses to negotiate, we have the capability to take out these nuclear facilities.”
“And I’ve got to say, Mark, you and I have talked about this. Listen, there are some voices in the Trump administration that are on the isolationist wing of foreign policy that say, let’s not worry about Iran. Let’s not do anything about Iran. And listen, I am someone who is very reluctant to use military force, but Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons because Iran wants to be able to threaten to use nuclear weapons, and they might even use them. And I believe a nuclear Iran is an unacceptable threat of seeing an atomic bomb detonated in the skies of New York or the skies of Los Angeles. And so, our Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, I don’t think he’s going to allow that risk. We are going to demand the centrifuges, the nuclear capability be dismantled, and they either do so willingly or they’ll be dismantled unwillingly.”
Deliberately Mixed Signals
As all of this transpired, President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke this weekend, claiming that Iran’s commitment to dialogue was rock-solid and contending that they desire a civilian nuclear program. He said this to Navy officials in Bandar Abbas during a discussion of ongoing negotiations with the US, according to Fox News.
“We are not seeking war, we favor negotiation and dialogue, but we are not afraid of threats either, and we will in no way retreat from our legal rights,” Pezeshkian commented, straddling a political fence and obviously not agreeing to anything.
Politico is touting Pezeshkian as a reformist leader who is just trying to reach consensus with the West. Right – there are no “moderates” in Iran’s leadership.
There have been four rounds of negotiations so far on Iran’s nuclear program. There is no agreement, and Iran hasn’t slowed its enrichment one bit, nor does it intend to.
Fox News reported:
Iran is insisting they will continue to enrich uranium for civilian and research purposes, while the Trump administration is calling for all enrichment to end. Right now, Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, well beyond the confines of the 2015 nuclear deal that President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.
Over the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi commented on the current situation, saying that Iran has received no written proposal from the United States about an agreement.
“Mark my words: there is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes: a right afforded to all other NPT signatories, too,” Ataghchi said in a post on X.
Ataghchi flatly stated that enrichment will continue, deal or no deal.
A Threshold Nuclear Weapons State
The Arms Control Association reported in January 2024, that Iran had accelerated its production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels, pointing out that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had estimated Iran was producing approximately nine kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235 per month, “Accelerating the production of uranium enriched to 60 percent U-235 is concerning because the material can be quickly enriched to weapons-grade levels or 90 percent.”
“Once you’re at 60, you’re 90% of the way there. You are, in essence, a threshold nuclear weapons state, which is what Iran basically has become,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday.
Iran absolutely knows they can’t have it both ways, and it is apparent they have no intention of reaching an agreement to de-nuclearize.
President Trump, however, is still hopeful on the matter.
“Iran wants to trade with us,” Trump told host Bret Baier on Fox News. “And I’m OK with it.”
“I’ve told Iran, we make a deal, you’re going to be very happy,” the President said.
Drawing a “Red Line”
U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff clarified on Sunday that the Trump administration has drawn a “red line” at nuclear enrichment capabilities in its negotiations with Iran.
“We have one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability,” Witkoff stated on ABC’s This Week. “We cannot have [enrichment] because enrichment enables weaponization, and we will not allow a bomb to get here.”
