Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech that Iran faces a campaign by its enemies aimed at public opinion and cultural identity to bring about regime change which a US-Israeli war in June failed to achieve.
“We are in a propaganda war and a spiritual war,” Khamenei said during a meeting in Karaj on Monday which local media published the next day.
“The enemy understood that seizing this land and this country through pressure and military tools is not possible.”
Khamenei said Iran’s adversaries had shifted their focus to influencing public opinion and culture. His remarks appeared to refer to the United States and Israel.
Iran's two nemeses launched a surprise attack in June, culminating in US attacks on three key nuclear facilities. Though US President Donald Trump said the raids obliterated Tehran's capability, a dispute festers over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Tehran denies seeking a bomb but the United States along with other Western countries and Israel deny its intentions. Trump has vowed to attack Iran again if it restarts uranium enrichment and Iran has denied a punishing response in any war.
“If they want to interfere and achieve success, they must change hearts and minds,” he said. He said pressure on Iran was ongoing in the military, economic and media realms as well as in cyberspace and the foreign press.
“All of this is focused on one point, and that point is pressure on the resistance of nations, with the Iranian nation foremost,” he said. Khamenei said the ultimate goal of such efforts was to erode Iran’s revolutionary and religious identity.
“The enemy’s objective in our country is to gradually turn people away from the revolution, its goals and its memory,” he said. He called on supporters of the Islamic Republic to recognize what he described as the adversaries’ strategy and to strengthen Iran’s cultural and media response.
The veteran theocrat, 86, has long accused Tehran's adversaries of seeking regime change by sowing the seeds of protest and discontent. Iran for over a quarter century has quashed repeated rounds of widespread unrest with deadly force.
Authorities stepped up a crackdown on dissidents and alleged spies in the wake of the June conflict even as it has relaxed enforcement of certain Islamic cultural rules in the theocracy in a move opposed by some hardliners.
Khamenei's remarks come as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman said last month that Tehran's archenemy, Israel, is in no position to launch a new war against the country, describing current rhetoric as psychological pressure rather than a genuine military threat.
