Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said on Wednesday that his military had dealt the United States a “slap in the face” when it unleashed missiles at American forces stationed in Iraq.
In a televised address from the holy city of Qom, Ayatollah Khamenei said incremental military actions against the United States alone were “not sufficient.”
“What matters is that the presence of America, which is a source of corruption in this region, should come to an end,” he said to a hall filled with imams and others.
“Death to America!,” the crowd chanted. “Death to Israel!”
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Ayatollah Khamenei said that “sitting at the negotiating table” with American envoys would open the door to greater American intervention in the region and that such negotiations, therefore, must “come to an end.”
“This region,” he said, “does not accept the US presence.”
The ayatollah provided no additional details about the strikes on Tuesday night, in which, American allies say, no one was killed.
He called Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, considered to have been the second-most powerful man in Iran, a “dear friend to us,” and praised him as a “great, brave warrior.”
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, in his meeting with the council of ministers on Wednesday morning, detailed his country’s larger regional goal in comments directed at the Americans. “You cut off the hand of Qassim Suleimani from his body and we will cut off your feet from the region,” he said.
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