“The arrogant power of America and some European countries has weakened and will become weaker,” he said in a meeting with thousands of people from the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan and South Khorasan in Tehran on Monday.
The US, the Leader added, is working on ethnic and sectarian faultlines in Iran with the aim of creating a crisis in the country.
“Our information tells us that the American government has created a crisis group with the mission to search for the points which they think can be used to provoke a crisis in Iran. With contemplation and study, they have concluded that there are several crisis points in Iran: ethnic differences, religious differences, and the issue of gender and women, which should be provoked to create a crisis,” the Leader explained.
“This is America’s program but camels dream of cotton seeds,” Ayatollah Khamenei noted, using a famous Persian proverb to denote delusion.
About a year ago, Iran was hit by a cocktail of subversive action, which included riots under the moniker of women’s rights after a young girl from Iran’s Kurdistan collapsed at a police station and passed away later in hospital.
The incident was pounced upon by subversive elements in Sistan and Baluchestan and Kurdistan to trigger months of mayhem. Like the Iranian Kurdistan which is predominantly Kurdish and Sunni, Sistan and Baluchestan has a significant Baluch and Sunni population.
Ayatollah Khamenei said, “The enemy is serious in its enmity and planning, but we are also very serious in confronting the enemy.”
“The enemy has targeted two basic points, one is national unity, the other is national security, and we must stand against this plan of the enemy.”
Unity, Ayatollah Khamenei added, means that religious, political, group and ethnic differences should be left aside where the interests of the nation are at stake.
“All people from different ethnicities and religion groups should join together. Since there is a clear direction, this unity is important,” the Leader continued.
As for security, he said, “those who threaten national security are the enemies of the nation; they work for the enemy, whether they realize it or not”.
Ayatollah Khamenei added a big change is in the making in the world, toward which the regional nations should not be indifferent, as they were during the colonial era, or after the First World War.
“The main lines of this transformation are several things: First of all, the weakening of the world’s arrogant powers. The arrogant power of America has weakened and is getting weaker. Another main line of this evolution is the emergence of new regional and global powers.”
“They themselves say that the indicators of American power in the world like economy are declining. One of the most important indicators of American power was the strong American economy; they say it is declining.”
Another line is the US possibility of interfering in other states, Ayatollah Khamenei said.
“America interfered in various governments, but the condition is now declining. Today, America has to create a combined war in order to hit the governments that it wants to hit, which is very costly for it, and will not work out in the end,” he added.
The Leader called the US failure in Syria and the humiliating escape from Afghanistan as two obvious examples of the decline of American power.
As for the decline of Europe, the situation is no better.
“You hear these days how the African countries that were under the influence of France are rising against it one after another,” the Leader said.
“The Western powers, which are headed by America and then Europe, do not have the former power today, they are weakening and this weakness is increasing. Day by day, new powers are rising; this is a great global change.”
Nevertheless, “when we say the enemy is becoming weak, it doesn’t mean that it cannot plot, be hostile and strike, it can,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.
“They are busy planning, we should not sleep, we should not be negligent.”
Ayatollah Khamenei stressed the US plots are not exclusive to Iran. Washington, he stated, has also plans in the region for Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Afghanistan and even for the countries of the Persian Gulf, which are its old and traditional friends.
