Contributor
Seven years after Donald Trump quit the nuclear deal, his duel with Ali Khamenei looks lopsided: the US president spoke from New York with renewed leverage, while Iran’s leader replied in taped defiance that evinced more strain than authority.
Khamenei’s televised speech on Tuesday captured both his persistence and his weakness.
Shortly before, Trump told a packed United Nations that Iran's "so-called" Supreme Leader had spurned a US offer of full cooperation in exchange for suspending its enrichment of uranium.
The rasping 86-year-old leader repeated that uranium enrichment is Iran’s sovereign right and dismissed negotiations with Washington as futile, but the context was unmistakable: nuclear sites had been struck, senior commanders lost and the economy reeled after a 12-day Israeli-American war in June.
The timing made clear that the speech was taped hours earlier before Trump had even spoken, and Khamenei’s delivery relied on hand-scribbled notes.
What was presented as a rebuttal was in fact a prepared monologue, more an appeal to a weary population than a real-time answer to Washington.
Turning point: Soleimani
The confrontation has followed a familiar rhythm.
In September 2018 Trump told the UN the US had quit the “horrible” nuclear deal, restored sanctions and denounced Tehran as the “world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” Days later, Khamenei addressed crowds in Azadi Stadium, boasting of an unbroken axis from Yemen to Gaza.
The following year, protests over fuel hikes revealed cracks at home, and on January 3, 2020, an American drone strike killed Qassem Soleimani, Khamenei’s most trusted lieutenant and the architect of Iran’s proxy network.
By September 2020 Trump was still boasting of Soleimani’s death and tightening sanctions, while Khamenei deflected with reminders of Iran’s endurance during the Iran-Iraq War embargo.
Fractured command
Fast forward to September 2025: Trump once again denounced Iran from the UN podium. Hours later Iranians heard Khamenei’s taped message—defiant, but less an assertion of command than an effort to buy time for a regime battered by war, inflation, and looming snapback sanctions.
Between June 12 and 24, 2025, Israel launched a sweeping air campaign against Iran, killing nuclear scientists along with hundreds of civilians and military personnel. Iran retaliated with volleys of drones and missiles. But the upshot was unmistakable.
Khamenei vanished from public view for nearly three weeks and has appeared only sparingly since. His speech on Tuesday sounded less like triumph than a plea for stamina from a population strained by sanctions and conflict.
In late August 2025, the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) triggered it, citing Iran’s growing stockpile and obstruction of inspections. On September 19, the Security Council failed to adopt a draft to offer relief, meaning all UN sanctions are set to return on September 28.
On borrowed time?
Khamenei spoke against this backdrop of dwindling external support and exposed vulnerabilities. Hopes of Russian and Chinese protection have proven illusory, and Israel’s strikes stripped away the proxy shield that once kept Iran at arm’s length from direct confrontation.
The Islamic Republic—the “system” in Iran’s official parlance—now leans on survival tactics: smuggling networks, repression and symbolic defiance, reminiscent of Saddam in the 1990s.
Tehran seeks to wring advantage from global distractions, from the US-China rivalry to Europeans’ recognition of Palestine. Yet harsh realities persist: a broken economy, an alienated populace and the specter of renewed confrontation.
After the June war, thousands more were arrested—including many from Iran’s Jewish community — on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. At least nine people have been hanged on such charges since October 7, 2023, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization.
Khamenei’s defiant message hardly offered a way out. It functioned more as reassurance to his circle and propaganda for the base—another effort to buy time.
The veteran theocrat's latest message served more as reassurance to his circle and propaganda for the base than as a real strategy. It showed him boxed into a mentality that time can be bought through attrition.
The reckoning ahead will decide whether his persistent defiance can prolong the ruling system, or whether sanctions, airstrikes and popular anger will force concessions that no rhetoric can forestall.
