TEL AVIV – The United States is the Middle East’s main enemy, with the “Zionist regime” a close second, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday.
Khamenei blamed the U.S. for turmoil in the Middle East, but said that Israel also shared responsibility.
His comments were made at a meeting in Tehran on Sunday with the head of Islamic terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Ramadan Abdullah.
Iran’s Mehr News agency said that Khamenei “reaffirmed that with this perspective in regional issues, Iran sees the United States as the main enemy with the Zionist regime standing behind it. He pointed to extensive, unprecedented sanctions of the U.S. and its followers against the Islamic establishment in recent years and dubbed the objective of them as discouraging Iran from continuing its path; ‘but they failed to achieve their goals and will fail in future as well.’ ”
Khamenei also tweeted a slew of anti-American and anti-Israel statements, including a claim that the U.S. and its “colonialist plot” was behind Islamic infighting between Sunni and Shiite groups.
The supreme leader also said that “defending Palestine in the face of the Israeli regime” was equal to “defending Islam.”
“From the beginning, the Islamic Republic of Iran has considered support for Palestine as its duty, it will fulfill this duty in future, too,” Khamenei tweeted.
Khamenei praised Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, saying surely Israel was “scared of Hezbollah more than in the past.”
In March, the supreme leader ruled out ever having any kind of ties with either the U.S. or Israel, citing “proof” of an American plot to execute a coup in the Islamic Republic.
He also claimed that missiles, and not negotiations, would constitute Iran’s future relations with the outside world.
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