TEHRAN – “There is no nation like the Iranian nation,” Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in 1989, only a few months after he was elected as Iran’s Leader. “Iran stands with power, selfconfidence, and determination against any power that seeks to dominate it,” he added.

For the next 37 years, American politicians did not take this assessment seriously. After failing to bring Iran to its knees through the eightyear war it waged against Iran via Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Washington turned to other tactics before attempting war again. It imposed debilitating sanctions on Iran, funded terrorists along Iran’s borders, and attempted to topple the Islamic Republic through multiple coups. After all this, the Americans tried war against Iran for a second time in June 2025. That war failed to cripple Iran as well. A third war was waged last week, but not before another warning from Ayatollah Khamenei.

“The U.S. presidents who came before you could not defeat the Iranian nation,” the Leader said during a meeting with thousands of Iranians in January, directly addressing President Donald Trump. “You won’t be able to defeat the Iranians either.”

And Ayatollah Khamenei was correct. The U.S. and Israel assassinated him while he was in his office during the morning hours of Saturday. He was martyred alongside his wife, one of his daughters, a soninlaw, a daughterinlaw, and two of his grandchildren, including a 14monthold granddaughter. Ayatollah Khamenei is now gone, but the validity of all his assessments remain. 

Trump and Netanyahu believed that by assassinating Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian system would collapse and the Iranian Armed Forces would disintegrate.

But the system endured, and the military launched costly retaliation less than two hours after the initial enemy strikes.
The two politicians also believed that by killing Iran’s Leader, the Iranian people would flood the streets and topple the Islamic Republic for them, preventing anyone from replacing the 86yearold Ayatollah Khamenei. They were wrong about this as well—and perhaps this was their greatest miscalculation. Iranians have been taking to the streets every night in large numbers under U.S.–Israeli bombardment, not to topple the government, but to express support for it.

“We are no longer in 1953, when Americans could decide the Iranian people’s fate with the help of a few thugs and a suitcase filled with dollars,” said one demonstrator in Tehran. She is 34, pregnant, and attends the rallies with her two small children. “We will not allow that. We don’t care how many bombs they drop on us — we will prevail and keep the fate of our country in our own hands,” she added.
Nearby, a 13yearold boy who had nearly lost his voice during the night’s demonstrations told reporters that, despite his age, he understood that “dying is better than capitulating.”

“All of my friends share my view. I saw them all here tonight,” he said as we passed by the ruins of newly bombed residential buildings. “We will continue to come to these demonstrations. We don’t care what Trump or Netanyahu try to do.”

The nightly gatherings have become a symbol of national resistance, as civilians vow to stand firm amid ongoing strikes on urban areas.
Americans in the White House, meanwhile, are seeing their bases across West Asia bombed, dozens of their soldiers killed, and their president humiliated across the globe, because they failed to heed Ayatollah Khamenei’s warning: no American president has managed to subjugate the Iranian nation, and no American president ever will. These are people that believe in a cause and are ready to sacrifice everything to persevere it.