Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, unleashed one of his harshest attacks yet against the U.S. and President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a speech on Sunday, Khamenei said that the new administration is a bunch of “rookie and inexperienced hooligans” who do not know the Iranian nation well and do not understand how they are behaving towards Iran.
He used the term Chaghoo Keshan, about the Trump team, which means knife wielding ruffians and is very derogatory in Persian.
Speaking to families of Iranian servicemen killed in Syria, he said, it is around forty years that Americans have not been able to do anything to the Islamic Republic and they won’t be able to do anything in the future either. But he said this in a derogatory language, only paraphrased here.
He added that the U.S. show of power means very little and said when the Islamic Republic was new and weak, the U.S. was not able to do anything and what can they do now when the Islamic Republic has become strong.
Speaking about president Trump he also used undiplomatic words;“This dude who has just come [to power] in America…”
Khamenei often uses harsh terminology to describe those he regards as enemies, but this speech is most probably the harshest yet.
However, it is interesting that after the first published version of his remarks, a second, edited version appeared on his official website, which smoothed out the harshest remarks, either by omission or by paraphrasing. All Iranian news agencies immediately changed their reports and published or quoted the second version. But the original recording of his voice exists and used by Radio Farda for preparing its reporting.
It is also important to note that President Hassan Rouhani in a speech on June 15 criticized the derogatory and harsh style of discourse used by some political and religious leaders of the Islamic Republic.
“Why don’t we modify our tone? Why are we unaware of the [proper] ways of talking to the government, the region or the world?” he said. This was seen as direct criticism of the hardliners in Iran who are ayatollah Khamenei’s loyal followers.
