The Iranian Islamist regime debuted a billboard in the heart of Tehran this weekend with images of destroyed fighter jets on an aircraft carrier forming an American flag, threatening the destruction of the U.S. military.
The billboard featured the slogan, “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind,” according to the British Sky News agency. The red and white stripes of the American flag are made with ocean waves under the aircraft carrier streaked in what appears to be blood.
The billboard follows over a month of widespread protests in the country against the decades-old regime, demanding an end to Islamist repression. President Donald Trump has supported these protests, urging Iranians to “take over your institutions” and depose dictator Ali Khamenei. This weekend, he confirmed the movement of U.S. naval assets, which he described as an “armada,” to the Middle East in the event that American force would be necessary in the context of the protests.
In addition to threatening America, the Iranian regime has responded to the protests with its typical brutality. Estimates of the death toll as a result range from about 5,000, which is the Iranian regime statistic, to as high as 30,000. Some eyewitness reports collected by dissident groups describe harrowing incidents of Iranian regime thugs opening fire on unarmed protesters, killing to silence those who survive. The regime has largely shut down internet access, limiting the protesters’ ability to share the violence with the world.
Protests erupted in late December following a catastrophic decline in the value of the rial. Inflation and other economic woes have longed plagued Iran as a result of the incompetence of its government and the imposition of heavy sanctions on its economy, particularly its oil industry, in response to its status as the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism. The sanctions situation worsened towards the end of 2025 as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for the first time in two decades, found Iran guilty of violating international law with its illicit uranium enrichment and the United Nations reimposed “snapback” sanctions in late September, restoring sanctions lifted during negotiations towards the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama.
RELATED: Trump Issues Blunt Warning to Iran Amid Retaliation Threats
As of Sunday, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), a dissident organization, has documented 631 people killed by the regime. These are the confirmed regime kills and a significantly smaller number than the true death toll, which the group estimates to be in the tens of thousands. Among the latest people confirmed killed by the regime are a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old. Other estimates suggest as many as 35,000 people have been killed by the Iranian regime in the past month.
“Authorities are systematically holding the bodies of slain protesters hostage in government morgues. Families are being blackmailed into signing false documents declaring that their children were members of the Basij militia killed by anti-government rioters,” the PMOI/MEK claimed in its latest update on the situation on Monday.
The Iranian regime itself has confirmed 5,000 deaths in the protests, but falsely claimed that the protests are actually terrorist operations influenced by the United States and Israel. It has offered no evidence of any such foreign meddling.
President Trump has been overtly supportive of the protesters and said publicly he is preparing for American intervention if necessary.
“We have a big flotilla going in that direction. We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely,” Trump said on Thursday.
Trump claimed that Iran had desisted in hanging some protesters in response to his pressure, but insisted, “we have an armada.”
“We have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won’t have to use it, we’ll see,” he added.
The Iranian regime, as usual, threatened war with the United States in response to that pressure. Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a screed by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claiming that Iran had shown “restraint” after taking no meaningful action when Trump bombed their illicit nuclear sites in June, but that it would no longer do so.
“Unlike the restraint Iran showed in June 2025, our powerful armed forces have no qualms about firing back with everything we have if we come under renewed attack,” Araghchi claimed. “This isn’t a threat, but a reality I feel I need to convey explicitly, because as a diplomat and a veteran, I abhor war.”
“An all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying to peddle to the White House,” he added. “It will certainly engulf the wider region and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.”
Iran prosecuted and “convicted” President Trump after the 2020 airstrikes that eliminated Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and Iran’s most valuable terrorist mastermind. Iranian officials and propagandists have repeatedly called for Trump’s death. At Soleimani’s funeral, one speaker suggested crowdsourcing $80 million to serve as a bounty to kill Trump.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.