Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in a speech that Iran faces a campaign by its enemies aimed at public opinion and cultural identity to bring about regime change which a US-Israeli war in June failed to achieve.
“We are in a propaganda war and a spiritual war,” Khamenei said during a meeting in Karaj on Monday which local media published the next day.
“The enemy understood that seizing this land and this country through pressure and military tools is not possible.”
Khamenei said Iran’s adversaries had shifted their focus to influencing public opinion and culture. His remarks appeared to refer to the United States and Israel.
Iran's two nemeses launched a surprise attack in June, culminating in US attacks on three key nuclear facilities. Though US President Donald Trump said the raids obliterated Tehran's capability, a dispute festers over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Tehran denies seeking a bomb but the United States along with other Western countries and Israel deny its intentions. Trump has vowed to attack Iran again if it restarts uranium enrichment and Iran has denied a punishing response in any war.
“If they want to interfere and achieve success, they must change hearts and minds,” he said. He said pressure on Iran was ongoing in the military, economic and media realms as well as in cyberspace and the foreign press.
“All of this is focused on one point, and that point is pressure on the resistance of nations, with the Iranian nation foremost,” he said. Khamenei said the ultimate goal of such efforts was to erode Iran’s revolutionary and religious identity.
“The enemy’s objective in our country is to gradually turn people away from the revolution, its goals and its memory,” he said. He called on supporters of the Islamic Republic to recognize what he described as the adversaries’ strategy and to strengthen Iran’s cultural and media response.
The veteran theocrat, 86, has long accused Tehran's adversaries of seeking regime change by sowing the seeds of protest and discontent. Iran for over a quarter century has quashed repeated rounds of widespread unrest with deadly force.
Authorities stepped up a crackdown on dissidents and alleged spies in the wake of the June conflict even as it has relaxed enforcement of certain Islamic cultural rules in the theocracy in a move opposed by some hardliners.
Khamenei's remarks come as Iran’s Revolutionary Guards spokesman said last month that Tehran's archenemy, Israel, is in no position to launch a new war against the country, describing current rhetoric as psychological pressure rather than a genuine military threat.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.