Iran Supreme Leader Gives First Speech Since Ceasefire, Remains Firm in Self-Defense

Edgar Lee

Read about our editorials on Iran’s victory of US-Israeli aggression here, and Iran’s right to defend itself here.

On Thursday (06/26), Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei gave a televised speech in which he defended Iran’s right to defend itself and denounced surrender to the US-Israel aggressors.

Khamenei, in the face of assassination threats, made his first public appearance since the shaky, but still in effect, ceasefire between the US-Israel and Iran. He firmly denounced any possibility of an Iranian surrender, contrary to the terrorist President Trump’s call for an “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”, stating: “Anyone who expects Iran to surrender to another country is spouting nonsense”.

He mentioned that despite the US and Israel’s feigned strength, “the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic”, adding that, “The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed”. These conclusions reflect even the views of US officials, predicting that Israel’s air defenses couldn’t last more than a few weeks of Iranian missile attacks and that Iranian missiles had consistently penetrated air defenses.

Khamenei pointed out the constantly-changing pretexts of US imperialist aggression against Iran, noting how the true justification has been for the Iranian regime’s subservience to US imperialism: “It all boils down to one thing, which is that they want Iran to surrender”.

He reiterated the fact that US airstrikes against nuclear facilities did not destroy Iran’s progress, as Trump has boastfully claimed, which Khamenei called a “bizarre exaggeration”. As mentioned in a previous editorial, the main product of Iran’s nuclear program—enriched uranium—is likely still intact.

He pointed out how the aggression against Iran has won nothing for the US or Israel so far, with the airstrikes’ immediate goal, destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, and overarching goal, surrender, not being achieved.

Iran’s victory against the US-Israel war of aggression through its Operation True Promise 3 and the US and Israel’s consequent ceasefire demonstrates the true fragility of US imperialism and its worsening crisis, stumbling from defeat to defeat until its inevitable death.

Image: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei giving a televised speech on June 26, 2025. Credit: Khamenei.ir.

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