President: Distrusting enemies key to progress

The president made the remarks in a speech at the mausoleum of the founder of Iran’s Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini on the eve of the anniversary of his demise on Friday night.

Raeisi said: “The Imam proved that the Islamic Revolution can come to fruition by trusting and believing in God.”

He quoted the late founder of the Islamic Republic as saying, “The United States cannot do a damn thing,” and added, “Today, we see that a White House spokesperson explicitly says that the maximum pressure campaign against Iran has failed.”

Former US president Donald Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 and unleashed its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran. His successor Joe Biden refused to ease the bans even during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Raisi also hailed the Iranian medical staff and scientists for taking giant steps by relying on domestic capabilities to rein in the virus and reduce the daily death toll from over 700 people to near zero.

Touching on of Imam Khomeini’s characteristics, Raisi said his struggle against oppression and his fight for the deprived and the oppressed stood out.

The Iranian president said: “Politics without spirituality has caused many miseries for human beings and seventy years of oppression against the Palestinian people stems from politics without spirituality.”

Imam Khomeini devoted his life to standing up to Iran’s former Pahlavi regime and led the 1979 Islamic Revolution to victory. He passed away on June 3, 1989 at the age of 87.