TEHRAN – In a speech on Saturday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei addressed the state of play between Iran and the West.

The Leader contextualized the unrest in Iran which erupted nearly two months ago, highlighting the underlying reasons for the West’s hostility toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

 In a speech delivered at a meeting with the people of Isfahan province, Ayatollah Khamenei addressed the current riots and said that they will be put to an end soon. 

He said the purpose of these riots is to make the authorities tired. “The main puppeteers of the recent riots who failed in pitting the people are seeking to make the officials tired through continuing mischief. But the riots will be put to an end and the nation will continue progress and effort with increasing hatred of them and fresh morale,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to a readout of the meeting put out by khamenei.ir. 

Commenting on the riots, the Leader described how the Iranian people turned threats into opportunities historically. He said the ability to turn threats into opportunities is natural to a faithful nation. 

A case in point, the Leader indicated, was the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s (locally known as the Sacred Defense). According to the Leader, in this war, the whole world supported Saddam Hussein in his aggression against Iran. But the Iranian people turned this threat into an opportunity and showed to the world that they are invincible, he pointed out.  

He said the Iranian people also turned the threat posed by the riots into an opportunity. One such opportunity, the Leader said, is the exposition of those who staged riots but at the same time claimed to support the Iranian people. 

The Leader put the riots in Iran within the broader context of the Arrogant Powers’ enmity toward the Islamic Republic. He said these powers have problems with an Iran making constant progress in various fields. 

“The problem that the Arrogant Powers have with the Islamic Republic of Iran is due to the fact that if the Islamic Republic makes progress, flourishes, and shines in the world, the Western world’s logic of liberal democracy will be invalidated,” he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei added, “The West has plundered the entire world for more than two centuries using the logic of liberal democracy. In one place, they said there is no freedom here. In another place, they said there is no democracy here, and they entered those places. They plundered the wealth, treasures, and resources of those countries under the pretext of wanting to establish democracy there. Europe, which was poor, became wealthy at the price of demolishing many wealthy countries such as India and China. Now Iran was not colonized directly, but they did whatever they could here as well.”

He continued, “An example of this is in front of your eyes in Afghanistan. The Americans entered Afghanistan and committed crimes there for 20 years. They committed all sorts of crimes. After 20 years, the same government that they were initially fighting against ended up governing Afghanistan. They handed [the country] over to them and left [Afghanistan] in such a disgraceful manner.”

The Leader stated, “Now if a government or a system is established in the world that rejects the logic of liberal democracy and it uses real logic to give people an identity, to give the people of its country an identity, to revive them, to awaken them, and to strengthen them while standing up to liberal democracy, this will invalidate the logic of liberal democracy. This is how the Islamic Republic is.”

Ayatollah Khamenei also underlined that the reason the West is opposing Iran is that Tehran is making progress. “We are making progress but the Arrogant Powers are disturbed and upset at the progress of Islamic Iran,” he said, adding that “due to this discomfort and anger, the Americans and Europeans threw their full weight [behind the unrest in Iran] but they cannot do a damn thing just as they couldn’t do so in the past and they will do so in the future.”