In his first address since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s supreme leader blasted the United States and Israel, accusing them of orchestrating the overthrow of one of Tehran’s key allies.
Iran’s supreme leader accuses U.S. and Israel of orchestrating Assad ouster
In his first address since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei excoriated the United States and Israel.
December 11, 2024
His remarks, while steeped in the Islamic Republic’s rhetorical tradition of condemnations of Israel and its Western allies, verged at moments into rare confluence with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s characterizations of Assad’s fall. In an address earlier this week, Netanyahu said the collapse of the Assad regime was “a direct result of the blows” Israeli forces “have dealt to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.”
In his speech Wednesday, Khamenei spoke for roughly an hour, seated in a simple chair before a pair of microphones. He held a thin stack of note cards in one hand that he occasionally referenced.
Khamenei sharply criticized Israeli military actions in Syria since Assad’s fall — a campaign of heavy airstrikes and the movement of ground forces into Syrian territory along Israel’s border. He praised Iran’s military and intelligence services and said Syria’s army was too weakened for help from Tehran to have made a difference. And he pledged that setbacks in Syria would only strengthen the resistance against the United States and Israel.
“The more you add pressure, the more steadfast it is, the more crimes you commit, the more it is motivated,” he said. The crowd chanted back: “God is great!” “Death to Israel!” “Death to America!”
Khamenei’s remarks came as Iran reels not just from Assad’s ouster but also from the crumbling of its “forward defense” strategy in the region, with the severe weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in response to the remarks that Khamenei should “blame himself for taking hundreds of billions of dollars from the Iranian people and investing them in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.”
Assad’s fall is a historic blow to Iran, severing supply lines to Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese group that was once the most powerful member of the “axis of resistance,” a loose alliance of militias backed by Tehran. After spending billions of dollars over decades to support armed groups from Gaza to Yemen, Iran has watched as the strongest and highest-profile members of its alliance sustained heavy losses this year.
Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated by a deadly Israeli war in Lebanon that killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. In Gaza, more than a year of war with Israel has reduced Hamas from the territory’s dominant force to a crippled insurgency.
As Khamenei concluded his remarks Wednesday, he told the crowd that a new generation of resistance would emerge from Syria’s losses.
“The brave Syrian youth will rise and overcome this situation,” he said, adding that, like the groups that fought against the United States in Iraq, the Syrian people would launch a similar campaign.
“It might take time, but the result is definite,” he said.
Kelsey Baker contributed to this report.