Ayatollah Khamenei: Iran advancing despite many challenges

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says despite enormous shortages and challenges facing Iran, the nation is “moving, striving, and advancing” through the steadfastness, sincerity, and justice-seeking of its people.

“The shortages and problems across the country are many, but the nation, day by day, with perseverance, sincerity, goodness, and pursuit of justice, creates honor and strength for Islam and Iran, and by God’s grace, the country is moving, striving, and advancing,” he said Thursday.

Speaking to thousands of devotees of the Prophet of Islam’s Household on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Fatima al-Zahra (SA) in Tehran Thursday, Ayatollah Khamenei touched on a broad media and propaganda campaign after the June aggression by Israel and the US met Iran's crushing response, forcing the adversaries into a ceasefire.

“Today, beyond the military clashes we have witnessed, we are in the center of a propaganda and media war with a broad enemy front,” he said. “The enemy has realized that this property, land, and spiritual homeland cannot be subdued and occupied through military pressure.”

He criticized those raising fears of renewed war, saying “Some repeatedly raise the possibility of another military confrontation, and some deliberately inflate this to keep people uncertain and anxious, but God willing, they will not succeed.”

Ayatollah Khamenei said the enemy’s “line, danger, and goal” is to erase the effects, goals, and concepts of the Islamic Revolution. The US, the Leader said, is “at the center of this wide and active front,” with some European countries surrounding it and domestic mercenaries and traitors residing in Europe seeking personal gain on the periphery.

He underscored the importance of understanding the enemy’s strategy, saying that resisting Western media campaigns is “difficult but entirely possible.”

“Like the military front, in this propaganda and media confrontation, our formation must be aligned with the enemy’s plan and goals and focus on the points he targets, namely Islamic, Shia, and revolutionary teachings.”

Highlighting Iranian resilience, Ayatollah Khamenei said: “The people of Iran, through national resistance, have thwarted ongoing efforts by the enemy to change the religious, historical, and cultural identity of the nation.”

He emphasized that proper defensive and offensive arrangements are needed to counter propaganda attacks targeting “minds, hearts, and beliefs,” and stressed that “Iran, despite existing problems and shortages across the country, continues on a forward-moving path.”

Ayatollah Khamenei defined national resistance as “endurance and steadfastness in the face of various pressures from dominators,” whether military — as seen during the Sacred Defense of the 1980s when Iranians fought an Iraqi invasion and in recent months among the youth — or economic, media, cultural, or political.

He cited provocations and propaganda by Western media actors and political-military leaders as instances of the enemy’s propaganda pressure, noting that the pressures often aim at “territorial expansion — like what the US does in Latin America — control of underground resources, changing lifestyles, and, most importantly, identity transformation.”

Ayatollah Khamenei also reflected on a century of foreign attempts to undermine Iran’s identity.

“For over a hundred years, global oppressors have tried to change the religious, historical, and cultural identity of the Iranian nation, but the Islamic Revolution made all those efforts futile. In recent decades, the people, through steadfastness and resilience, have foiled extensive pressures by enemies,” he said.

He highlighted the regional impact of Iranian resistance, saying the concept and language of resistance have expanded from Iran to regional countries and beyond.

“Some things the enemy did to Iran and the Iranian nation, if done to any other country, that nation and country would have been finished,” he said.

Ayatollah Khamenei called for vigilance and persistence, emphasizing that Iran’s continued “movement, effort, and progress” depends on steadfastness against both military and media pressures and on protecting the nation’s religious, historical, and cultural identity.

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