International Security and Law Analyst
Seven years after Donald Trump quit the nuclear deal, his duel with Ali Khamenei looks lopsided: the US president spoke from New York with renewed leverage, while Iran’s leader replied in taped defiance that evinced more strain than authority.
Khamenei’s televised speech on Tuesday captured both his persistence and his weakness.
Shortly before, Trump told a packed United Nations that Iran's "so-called" Supreme Leader had spurned a US offer of full cooperation in exchange for suspending its enrichment of uranium.
The rasping 86-year-old leader repeated that uranium enrichment is Iran’s sovereign right and dismissed negotiations with Washington as futile, but the context was unmistakable: nuclear sites had been struck, senior commanders lost and the economy reeled after a 12-day Israeli-American war in June.
The timing made clear that the speech was taped hours earlier before Trump had even spoken, and Khamenei’s delivery relied on hand-scribbled notes.
What was presented as a rebuttal was in fact a prepared monologue, more an appeal to a weary population than a real-time answer to Washington.
Turning point: Soleimani
The confrontation has followed a familiar rhythm.
In September 2018 Trump told the UN the US had quit the “horrible” nuclear deal, restored sanctions and denounced Tehran as the “world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.” Days later, Khamenei addressed crowds in Azadi Stadium, boasting of an unbroken axis from Yemen to Gaza.
The following year, protests over fuel hikes revealed cracks at home, and on January 3, 2020, an American drone strike killed Qassem Soleimani, Khamenei’s most trusted lieutenant and the architect of Iran’s proxy network.
By September 2020 Trump was still boasting of Soleimani’s death and tightening sanctions, while Khamenei deflected with reminders of Iran’s endurance during the Iran-Iraq War embargo.
Fractured command
Fast forward to September 2025: Trump once again denounced Iran from the UN podium. Hours later Iranians heard Khamenei’s taped message—defiant, but less an assertion of command than an effort to buy time for a regime battered by war, inflation, and looming snapback sanctions.
Between June 12 and 24, 2025, Israel launched a sweeping air campaign against Iran, killing nuclear scientists along with hundreds of civilians and military personnel. Iran retaliated with volleys of drones and missiles. But the upshot was unmistakable.
Khamenei vanished from public view for nearly three weeks and has appeared only sparingly since. His speech on Tuesday sounded less like triumph than a plea for stamina from a population strained by sanctions and conflict.
In late August 2025, the E3 (Britain, France, Germany) triggered it, citing Iran’s growing stockpile and obstruction of inspections. On September 19, the Security Council failed to adopt a draft to offer relief, meaning all UN sanctions are set to return on September 28.
On borrowed time?
Khamenei spoke against this backdrop of dwindling external support and exposed vulnerabilities. Hopes of Russian and Chinese protection have proven illusory, and Israel’s strikes stripped away the proxy shield that once kept Iran at arm’s length from direct confrontation.
The Islamic Republic—the “system” in Iran’s official parlance—now leans on survival tactics: smuggling networks, repression and symbolic defiance, reminiscent of Saddam in the 1990s.
Tehran seeks to wring advantage from global distractions, from the US-China rivalry to Europeans’ recognition of Palestine. Yet harsh realities persist: a broken economy, an alienated populace and the specter of renewed confrontation.
After the June war, thousands more were arrested—including many from Iran’s Jewish community — on suspicion of collaboration with Israel. At least nine people have been hanged on such charges since October 7, 2023, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights Organization.
Khamenei’s defiant message hardly offered a way out. It functioned more as reassurance to his circle and propaganda for the base—another effort to buy time.
The veteran theocrat's latest message served more as reassurance to his circle and propaganda for the base than as a real strategy. It showed him boxed into a mentality that time can be bought through attrition.
The reckoning ahead will decide whether his persistent defiance can prolong the ruling system, or whether sanctions, airstrikes and popular anger will force concessions that no rhetoric can forestall.
Satellite images reviewed by AP show construction at missile sites in Parchin and Shahroud, where buildings housing mixers appear under repair.
“If they’re able to reacquire some key things like planetary mixers, then that infrastructure is still there and ready to get rolling again,” said Sam Lair of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
Solid-fuel missiles are central to Iran’s deterrence strategy after Israeli strikes decimated much of its air defense.
Iran operates solid-fuel missile production facilities at Khojir and Parchin, both near Tehran, as well as at Shahroud, about 350 kilometers (215 miles) northeast of the capital. All three sites were struck by Israel in October 2024, during earlier hostilities between the two countries.
Experts say the June strikes appeared designed to destroy buildings housing mixers, the machines essential for evenly combining missile fuel.
Iran had been producing more than 200 solid-fuel missiles a month before the war, according to AP.
Iran fired more than 570 ballistic missiles during the conflict, depleting an estimated third of its arsenal, according to the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
Western officials believe Tehran could try to source mixers and propellant chemicals from China, which has previously supplied materials for Iran’s missile program. Beijing said it supports Iran’s sovereignty but voiced “deep concern” over rising regional tensions.
Iran’s Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said last month the country was now focused on producing “military equipment with higher precision and greater operational capabilities.”
“They have the capacity. A number of centrifuges may have escaped damage,” Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told The Times.
“They have places where they manufacture these components -- rotors, bellows and things -- where they do all these activities. So if they wanted to, it would just be a matter of time.”
Grossi said it would take “not much time” to enrich Iran’s stockpile of uranium from its current 60% purity to 90% weapons-grade. “It’s a matter of weeks -- not months or years,” he said.
Although inspections have resumed at some sites after Tehran suspended cooperation following the June strikes, Grossi said his agency had yet to gain access to Iran’s uranium stockpile.
“They seem to be quite protective of this,” he said, adding that Iran believes the material could still be vulnerable to further attacks.
Iran says its uranium stockpile was buried under rubble after the strikes on its facilities and is now out of reach.
Grossi confirmed the Fordow enrichment plant had sustained “considerable damage,” saying: “The kinetic impact, the earth movement and all of that, we can say with a great degree of confidence, must have affected almost totally the equipment that was in place.”
Eslami vows to rebuild facilities, rules out US talks
Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization and a vice president, told Sky News that the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan facilities were hit by 30,000lb US bunker-busting bombs in June.
“It is quite normal that during a military attack on facilities, they incur damage and the infrastructure is destroyed,” he said. “What is important is that science, know-how, technology, and industry are long-standing and deeply-rooted in the history of Iran.”
Eslami added that enrichment was for peaceful purposes, dismissing Western claims that Iran sought nuclear weapons.
“The enrichment percentage, what is presented in public opinion and in the media, is fueled by politicians, adventurers, and our enemies,” he said. “The enrichment percentage is not necessarily for weapons when it is high. We need higher enrichment for our sensitivities and precision measurement tools. No one is selling us these items. We need these products for the safety system of our reactors and for sensitive processes used for managing our reactors.”
He ruled out talks with Washington. “There is no need to talk to them,” Eslami said.
“The US government has committed great injustice to the Iranian people, has inflicted heavy blows on Iran since the beginning of the Islamic Revolution, and has recently carried out military attacks against our country. An enemy is an enemy, even if they have not shown hostility, while their hostility is great, it is futile to talk to such an enemy.”
Snapback sanctions deadline looms
The interviews come as European powers held last-ditch talks with Iran in New York before a September 27 deadline for the reimposition of UN sanctions, triggered under the 2015 nuclear deal’s “snapback” mechanism. Britain, France and Germany accuse Iran of non-compliance, while Tehran says its program remains peaceful.
Diplomats say sanctions will return automatically unless Iran restores access for UN inspectors and addresses concerns over its enriched uranium. The measures would reinstate UN travel bans, asset freezes, and arms restrictions, compounding already severe US and EU sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in New York he was using the “remaining days for diplomatic consultations that might lead to a solution,” but warned that if no compromise was found, “we will continue our path.”
President Masoud Pezeshkian has pledged Iran would “overcome” renewed sanctions, though the rial has hit record lows and inflation is nearing 50%.
The United States estimates the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions by up to two years, but Grossi cautioned it was “subjective.”
“Yes, they can reconstruct it but it would take a considerable amount of time, which could be measured in years,” he said.
Iranian officials argue the country’s capabilities cannot be erased. “What is important is that science, know-how, technology, and industry are long-standing,” Eslami said.
As the clock ticks toward sanctions snapback, Grossi warned the stakes remain high. “It’s a matter of weeks, not months or years,” he said of Iran’s ability to reach weapons-grade enrichment — a timeline that underscores both the urgency of diplomacy and the fragility of containment.
