ISLAMABAD- I stood there in Tehran, amid a sea of millions, my own eyes stinging with tears that refused to fall. As a state guest of Iran for the funeral of the martyred Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, I witnessed something no amount of Western propaganda can erase: a nation united not in defeat, but in unbreakable resolve. This wasn’t just mourning.

This was a resurrection of spirit. And yet, even as those millions poured into the streets, Donald Trump once again stabbed the entire peace-loving world in the back by violating the Islamabad MoU. This isn’t Trump’s first betrayal. It won’t be his last. But the blood on his hands and Netanyahu’s will stain history forever.

Witness to martyrdom – millions united in Tehran

The air in Tehran during those July days of 2026 was thick with grief, yet electric with defiance. I arrived as a state guest to attend the state funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assassinated in the opening salvos of the US-Israeli war. What I saw shattered every lie peddled by empire’s mouthpieces. Millions upon millions of Iranians—from every corner of the Islamic Republic flooded the streets, beating their chests, chanting slogans of resistance, and carrying portraits of their martyred leader like beacons in the darkness.

These weren’t coerced crowds. These were fathers holding their children’s hands, mothers weeping openly, young people who had never known another Supreme Leader linking arms with elders who remembered the Revolution. The martyrdom of Ayatollah Khamenei didn’t divide Iran it fused its soul. Shia and Sunni, Persian and Kurd, believer and skeptic: all stood shoulder to shoulder. I walked among them, feeling the raw humanity, the unshakeable faith that no cruise missile can bomb away. One elderly woman grabbed my arm, her voice trembling: “They killed our leader, but they birthed a thousand more.” In that moment, I understood resistance isn’t a policy. It’s blood memory.

Delegates from over 30 countries stood with us. Journalists from independent outlets, academics who refused to toe the Zionist line, economists warning of global collapse, diplomats who whispered their solidarity away from cameras. Their presence wasn’t mere protocol. It was a global rejection of American-Israeli gangsterism. I shook hands with men from Malaysia, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond. We didn’t need speeches. Their eyes said it: Iran stands for dignity. Trump and Netanyahu stand for destruction.

America’s trail of broken promises – from JCPOA to Islamabad

Trump didn’t just violate the Islamabad MoU. He spat on every norm of international decency. The fifth point—(Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements, using its best efforts, for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the needs for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.)—lies in tatters because this man cannot resist Israeli whispers.

Sound familiar? He did the exact same thing with the JCPOA, the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran honored to the letter. Iran allowed IAEA inspectors full access. Iran curbed enrichment. Iran kept its word. Trump tore it up on Netanyahu’s say-so, openly admitting the Israeli PM convinced him.

Netanyahu the same liar who’s screamed for 30 years that Iran is “weeks away” from a bomb. The same fraud who peddled the Iraq WMD hoax that cost a million lives. Trump calls this “dealmaking.” The world calls it treason against peace. Iran never betrayed an agreement with America. Not one. America betrays everyone. From the Native Americans to the Vietnamese, from Saddam’s Iraq (once an ally) to Gaddafi’s Libya (disarmed and destroyed), Washington signs papers with one hand and drops bombs with the other.

Endless wars, endless losses – America’s graveyard of empires

Let’s talk cold, hard numbers—the trillions wasted, the young American lives squandered. Since Vietnam, the United States has launched useless war after useless war and lost them all. Vietnam: over 58,000 American dead, millions of Vietnamese slaughtered, and a humiliating withdrawal. Trillions in today’s dollars, flushed away. Iraq: lies about WMDs, $2 trillion-plus, thousands of American soldiers killed, tens of thousands maimed for life—PTSD, lost limbs, broken families. Afghanistan: 20 years, another $2 trillion, Taliban back in power on day one of withdrawal.

And who benefits? Israel. Netanyahu and his predecessors drag America into these meat grinders while Israeli soldiers sip coffee in Tel Aviv. Not one Israeli life lost in these American adventures on their behalf. Zero. Yet thousands of young Americans kids from Ohio, Texas, rural America come home in body bags or wheelchairs. Their blood waters the Zionist project. Their parents receive folded flags. Israel’s lobby gets more aid, more vetoes at the UN, more impunity.

Trump thinks attacking Iran will force submission. Fantasy. Pure delusion spun from the same threads that led to every American defeat. Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. Iran has strategic depth, allies across the region, and a population forged in fire.

The human cost – soldiers sacrificed for a foreign master

I think of those American boys barely men, sent to die for Netanyahu’s paranoia. Limbs blown off by IEDs in Iraq. Brains scrambled by explosions in Afghanistan. Suicides spiking at home because no one explained why they were really there. Meanwhile, Israeli politicians laugh, demand more, and never send their own sons to the frontlines of America’s wars.

This isn’t alliance. This is vassalage. America as Israel’s attack dog, bleeding treasure and youth while the puppeteer stays safe. Trump, with his “America First” slogan, is the biggest hypocrite. His administration restarts wars that destroy American wallets at the gas pump and American futures in VA hospitals. All for a man who cried wolf on Iranian nukes for decades.

Iran’s righteousness vs. Trump’s global economic sabotage

Iran stands righteous. It honored the JCPOA. It engaged in good faith on the Islamabad MoU. It allowed inspections. It sought peace after its leader was martyred in an illegal strike. Trump? Hell-bent on economic Armageddon at Netanyahu’s behest. Revoking oil waivers, striking ports, threatening escalation these aren’t pressure tactics. These are acts of global sabotage.

If the Houthis close Bab el-Mandeb through which 10-12% of world trade flows—and Iran shuts the Strait of Hormuz carrying 20% of global oil the consequences will be biblical. Oil prices could surge past $200, $300 a barrel. Global recession. American truckers bankrupt. European factories shuttered. Asian economies in freefall. History warns us: the 1973 oil crisis crippled the West. This would be tenfold. Trump doesn’t care. His imagination weaves fantasies of Iranian collapse while the real collapse engulfs the world economy he claims to champion.

I saw this resolve in Tehran. Economists at the funeral sidelines spoke of Iran’s self-reliance, its pivot to BRICS, its refusal to kneel. Academics praised its scientific achievements under sanctions. Journalists documented the hypocrisy of a superpower bullying a sovereign nation.

The path forward – unity against empire’s hubris

As I left Iran, flying out with a heart heavier yet strangely hopeful, I carried the faces of those millions with me. The martyrdom united Iran. The betrayals unite the world against this axis of aggression. From Vietnam’s jungles to Baghdad’s ruins to Tehran’s streets, America’s losses prove one truth: you cannot bomb a people into submission when their cause is just.
Trump and Netanyahu weave diabolical threads, but the fabric tears. Global solidarity grows. Delegations from 30 nations at the funeral were just the beginning. The peace-loving world sees through the lies. Iran never sought war. It seeks dignity. America, under Trump, delivers only destruction and pays the price in blood and treasure.

The Islamabad MoU’s violation is not strength. It is the death rattle of a dying empire, propped up by a parasitic ally. Millions mourned Khamenei. Billions now watch, and resist. The righteous will prevail. History bends toward justice, no matter how many trillions Washington burns or how many lies Netanyahu tells. I saw it in Tehran. The world will see it soon enough.

By Mir Mohammad Alikhan