In a speech before contestants participating in an international Koran competition, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on all Muslim nations to oppose the United States, Reuters reported Thursday.
“The Iranian nation has successfully resisted bullying attempts by America and other arrogant powers and we will continue to resist,” Khamenei said. “All Muslim nations should stand united against America and other enemies.”
On Khamenei’s own website, the focus of the speech was a call for Muslim nations to abide by the Koran. Khamenei, who was described on the website as the “Leader of the Islamic Revolution,” said that the reason Muslim nations suffered “humiliation” was “due to lack of reliance upon Qur’an.”
In an account of the speech appearing in Iranian media, Khamenei expressed “sorrow” over the fact that some Muslim nations have relations with Israel.
Khamenei’s hatred of the United States has been consistent, and he expressed it even when President Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, was in office.
Despite the nuclear deal reached in 2015, Khamenei has maintained a hostile stance to the U.S. Just days after the deal was agreed to, Iran’s leader posted an image of Obama with a gun to his head, and later that year released a video calling the U.S “criminal” and claiming that Iran would defeat the U.S. in a war. He ordered Iranian authorities to block the import of American goods in November 2015, and accused the U.S. of attempting to subvert Iran by using “money and sexual attractions” later that month.
In January 2016, he hailed the Iranian forces who seized ten American sailors and two boats as doing “God’s deed.” Two months later, he said that Iran hoped to have relations with all nations except for the U.S. and Israel. In May 2016, he mocked President Barack Obama’s Nowruz message to the Iranian people and referred to the U.S. as the Islamic Republic’s “main enemy.”
[Photo: Khamenei.ir ]