In his first public comments since the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, Ayatollah Khamenei claimed victory over Israel and the U.S., despite the severe damage inflicted on his country’s three main nuclear facilities and the recent assassination of many of Iran’s top military commanders and nuclear scientists.
Khamenei addressed his nation for the first time following the U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal between Israel and Iran that followed U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan.
“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” Khamenei said.
Khamenei warned that the U.S. will pay a “heavy price” for launching future attacks and said Iran has access to “U.S. centers” in the Middle East.
He also claimed President Trump’s statements about the damage caused by U.S. strikes were “showmanship” and said Iran would never surrender.
Khamenei took to social media as well to declare victory over Israel and claim Iranian attacks nearly destroyed the Israeli regime.
“With all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic,” Khamanei said.
“My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime. 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,” he added in another post.
Khamenei’s latest jabs were not the first time he has replied directly to Trump’s statements. Trump taunted the Ayatollah, saying the U.S. and Israel knew his location but were choosing to spare his life for the time being. Khamenei dismissed Trump’s boast and said his nation would never surrender in the face of American threats.
On Wednesday, top U.S. intelligence officials corroborated Trump’s assessment that the U.S. strikes over the weekend “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israeli intelligence similarly observed “significant damage” to Iran’s nuclear sites but noted that a damage assessment takes time to complete. Likewise, the Iranian foreign ministry said its facilities were “badly damaged” by the U.S. strikes without going into specifics.
Chair of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi said in a recent interview the centrifuges at Fordow were “no longer operational” and destroyed by the U.S. strikes.
“Given the power of these devices and the technical characteristics of a centrifuge, we already know that these centrifuges are no longer operational, because they are fairly precise machines: there are rotors, and the vibrations [from the bombs] have completely destroyed them,” he said.
The IAEA is the United Nations’s independent watchdog and its report in May about Iran’s secret nuclear development activities generated renewed concerns about the extent of Tehran’s nuclear buildup.
Those intelligence assessments contradicted a low-confidence Defense Intelligence Agency report, leaked to mainstream media outlets, that suggested the U.S. strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment by a few months. The White House strongly disputed the DIA assessment and criticized the government officials for leaking its contents.
“There’s no way Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing happened. This was complete and total obliteration. They are way behind today compare to where they were just seven days ago,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday at the NATO Summit.
President Trump announced the cease-fire between Israel and Iran to halt the war between them after 12 days of fighting. The cease-fire came after Iran launched missiles at a U.S. military base in Qatar Monday, but none of them caused any damage of casualties. Trump said the Iranians notified the U.S. of the attack early.
Iran continued to send missiles at Israel as the cease-fire came into effect, leading Israel to accuse Tehran of violating it and preparing for retaliation. Trump pressured Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday not to launch retaliatory strikes and violate the cease-fire deal. He also voiced frustration towards both nations because of the fragile nature of the peace agreement.
The war began when Israel launched strikes earlier this month targeting Iranian nuclear sites and personnel. Israel’s operation took out multiple Iranian military commanders and nuclear scientists. Iran and Israel fired rounds of strikes at each other afterwards as Trump weighed direct U.S. involvement in the conflict. When Iran sent projectiles towards Israeli cities and towns, the U.S. helped its longtime ally fend off most of them as it did when Iran attacked Israel directly last year.
The Trump administration emphasized that it was not looking to begin a protracted war or orchestrate regime change with the strikes on Iran’s nuclear targets.