Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to support Iranian protesters by telling him to focus on his own country.
“The US President has said that if the Iranian govt. does such-and-such, I’ll take the side of the rioters. The rioters have put their hopes in him. If he’s so capable, he should manage his own country,” Khamenei wrote.
Trump had posted on Truth Social that the U.S. was ready to intervene if Iran used lethal force against peaceful protesters.
“If Iran ‘violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,’ Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social early Friday morning. ‘We are locked and loaded and ready to go.’”
Protests in Iran, now in their second week, started over high prices, a collapsing currency, and economic hardship. At least three protester deaths have been reported in clashes with security forces. A U.S.-based rights group says over 490 protesters and 48 security personnel have died, with more than 10,600 arrests.
Iranian officials accuse the U.S. and Israel of fomenting trouble and have called for a nationwide rally on Monday to condemn “terrorist actions led by the United States and Israel” in Iran, state media reported.
Trump’s statement has encouraged protesters, boosted their morale and raised public expectations, according to one demonstrator, Mojtaba, a 40-year-old medical doctor in the northeastern province of Khorasan.
Khamenei’s advice for Trump to “manage his own country” may refer to recent domestic protests in the U.S., including those in Minneapolis after a fatal ICE shooting.
