In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

All praise is due to God, Lord of the Worlds, and peace and greetings be upon our Master, Muhammad, and his pure, immaculate Progeny, particularly the Remnant of God on earth.

This meeting with you, our dear young people, our youth, and our teenagers, is a very blessed, lively, and meaningful meeting. I would like to thank those who gave presentations, those who spoke, those who performed the anthem, those who recited the Quran, and the respected host of the program.

Among the three events that took place on the 13th of Aban, the US struck a blow against the Iranian people in two of these events, and the Iranian people struck a blow against the US on one occasion. One of the two events in which the US struck a blow against the Iranian people was when Imam Khomeini was exiled on the 13th of Aban in 1343 AHSh [Nov. 4, 1964]. Imam Khomeini was exiled because he opposed the Capitulation laws.

“Capitulation” is a political term. What it means is that the employees of one country have immunity in another country. In other words, what the treasonous Pahlavi government agreed to was that US personnel in Iran have [legal] immunity. This meant that they were not tried in Iranian courts for any crime they committed. This was the law of capitulation. It is one of the most humiliating laws. Imagine if a drunk American drove a car in the streets [of Iran] and killed ten people, Iranian courts did not have the right to prosecute such a person. This person would be sent to the US to be prosecuted there.

This law was passed by the Pahlavi government. A voice was raised in opposition to this law, a forceful voice, and it was the voice of the magnanimous Imam. Imam Khomeini stood up, gave a speech, and said we would not accept that law. The outcome of this was that Imam was arrested and exiled from Iran on the 13th of Aban. So, the US was behind this. In other words, the Americans struck a blow against us.

The second blow was the killing of students. That was during the peak days of the Iranian nation's revolutionary movement. This Revolution was not just against the Pahlavi regime — it was against the Pahlavi regime and America. The police of that tyrannical regime, the Shah's police, massacred students in front of the [Tehran] University. They showered the students with bullets killing them. This also took place on the 13th of Aban. So, it was in these two events that the US struck a blow against us, the Iranian nation.

Ten months after the victory of the Revolution, on the 13th of Aban 1358 [Nov. 4, 1979], students entered the US embassy, took control of it, and uncovered the secrets and hidden documents in this embassy. The US was disgraced. This was our blow. It was the Iranian nation’s blow against the US. That’s three events.

So, what I want to say is that you, the youth of today, need to have analyses of different matters. Merely having emotions is not enough. Now I will explain what I mean by this. You need to analyze the core of the Islamic Revolution. You need to analyze the Sacred Defense, the eight-year war. You need to analyze the various events that took place in the 1360s [1980s].

You need to analyze the divergences that took place in the 1370s [1990s]. You need to analyze the various events that took place in the 1380s [2000s] and 1390s [2010s]. So you should know and realize what a certain event was about, how it started, who was behind it, and what caused it. These are examples of analyzing events.

Now I want to discuss an issue and that issue is our confrontation with the US. You’ve been chanting slogans against the US for the past hour, and there is no doubt about them. But what is the issue? Why do we have a problem with the US? The Americans themselves attribute their enmity toward the Iranian nation to the issue of the embassy — you see, what I am discussing is based on paying attention to and knowing what is being done, and what they want to do; I want you, our dear young people, to pay attention — some people follow them and repeat those same things.

What does this mean? They say that the reason the US imposes sanctions on Iran, the reason they treat Iran badly, the reason they incite riots and create problems in Iran, and the reason for America’s enmity toward Iran is that your students seized the US embassy. Both the Americans and their followers inside the country say this. During my presidency, a well-known American reporter and interviewer interviewed me in New York. The first thing he told me was, “The conflict that exists between us is due to you entering our embassy and seizing it.”

They want people to believe this, but this is a big lie. That is not the case. Twenty-six years before the event that took place at the embassy, the 28th of Mordad coup took place. No one went into the embassy at that time. In 1332 [1953], the US overthrew an independent, national government in Iran that was not affiliated with the US in a brutal, criminal coup. That is how the enmity of the US is. Therefore, America’s enmity toward the Islamic Republic, toward the Iranian nation, and toward Islamic Iran has nothing to do with the issue of the embassy.

Consider the documents that were found in the embassy. As you know, the students went in and brought the documents out. A large number of these documents had been thrown into paper shredders by the Americans. The students sat down and patiently stuck these pieces of paper back together. These documents now amount to 70 to 80 volumes of books. These documents showed that from the very first days after the victory of the Revolution the US embassy was a center of conspiracy and espionage against Iran.

A coup was even being planned in the US embassy. They wanted to stage a coup against the Revolution. They were devising a scheme to start a civil war. They were trying to launch a civil war in the provinces on the country’s border. They were planning how they could infiltrate the new Revolutionary government. They directed the counter-Revolutionary media that existed inside the country — they told them write this, say this, forge this, and spread this rumor and that rumor. They also had plans for sanctions. Therefore, from the very first days of the Revolution, the embassy was the center for planning conspiracies against the country and the Revolution. So this [US enmity] has nothing to do with the seizure of the Den of Espionage [US Embassy]. They started their activities against the Revolution long before that.

So the issue is not what the US tries to make appear to be [reality], and it is not what a few people — either naively or for various other reasons and motives — spread domestically saying, “The reason you see a power like the US is so active against the Islamic Republic is because you went and seized their embassy at that time.” No, that is not the case.

So, what is the issue? In order to understand the root of the matter, let's go back [in time] a little. I would like you young people to work carefully and thoughtfully on these issues because the future belongs to you. You are the strong arms for our country's progress. The country belongs to you and you must move forward. Let's delve a bit deeper and consider these issues.

The issue of Western influence in Iran started with the British. First, they came to Iran. Of course, starting in 1800s they infiltrated the Qajar government and gradually expanded their influence. The goal of the British was to do the same things in Iran which they had done in India. You know that India was in the clutches of the British for about 150 years. The British took the life out of India. Most of the wealth that the British have acquired stems from their colonization of India, which itself is a long story.

They wanted to do the same thing in Iran. In other words, they planned to start somewhere small, gradually build on that, and take control of the country’s economic resources. Then once the economy was in their control, political control would be easy for them. This is exactly what they did in India.

In India, they first established the East India Company. Then, when they had moved forward, they took over the Indian government. India became a part of the British Empire. That’s how it was for 150 years. They wanted to do the same thing in Iran. One of the first things they did was the monopolization of tobacco — you must have heard of the “Tobacco Movement" — where a monopoly for growing, selling, and buying tobacco in the country was given to England. The government organizations of that time during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah did not realize what this meant, so they accepted it.

[Ayatollah] Mirza Hasan Shirazi, a Shia marja [religious authority] in [the holy Iraqi city of] Samarra, understood what was going on behind this. He issued a fatwa that stopped and put an end to this agreement. This was the first thing they [England] did. It failed. There were various successive contracts of this kind. One of these important contracts was known as the “Vosuq al-Dowleh Agreement” [“Anglo-Persian Agreement”]. In the year 1919 AD or 1299 AHSh, the British gave a substantial bribe to the Iranian Prime Minister at that time [Mirza Hasan Khan Vosuq al-Dowleh] and this agreement was signed.

The Vosuq al-Dowleh Agreement placed Iran’s economy, politics, army, governing system, and everything else at the disposal of the British. This agreement was signed, but Martyr Modarres stood up all alone against this contract in the National Majlis of that time. He disclosed what was happening and did not allow them to proceed, so this contract was also cancelled. There were other contracts as well, such as the “Reuters Concession” and others, but most of these contracts were annulled, cancelled, or prevented by religious scholars.

Of course, England then took revenge on the religious scholars. The British government found that the plan they had implemented in India was not practical in Iran. They found a solution. Pay attention to this. Their solution was the following: They decided that they should instate a brutal, dictatorial government in Iran that was 100 percent dependent on them so that they wouldn’t have to worry anymore and then they could do whatever they wanted to do in Iran through that government.

They found the Cossack Reza Khan [Pahlavi] — they knew him; they saw who he was. Reza Khan was just the person that the British needed. He was a very cruel, vicious, impudent, illiterate, ignorant, roughneck, impious, faithless person. That is the type of person they found.

They took advantage of the weakness of the Qajar king, Ahmad Shah, and launched a coup in Iran using Reza Shah and another person, Sayyid Zia Tabatabai, whom they later removed. First, they made Reza Khan the commander-in-chief, then they made him the prime minister, and then they made him the Shah of Iran. What the British wanted was done in Iran.

The first thing they used Reza Shah for was to suppress the clergy and terrorize the people. They severely terrorized the people. As our parents and grandparents told us, no one dared to even breathe during the reign of Reza Shah. No one dared to criticize Reza Shah even in a private room, in a room with only two or three members of their own family!

That is how he terrorized the nation. He made the clergy stay at home, removed their turbans from their heads, closed the seminaries, publicly opposed religious laws such as hijab, and did what the British wanted to be done in Iran, that is, seizing the financial and economic resources [of the country]. He did whatever they wanted.

I would like to point out something about intellectual, westernized people, people who were connected to the West, although not all were connected to the West. Some people weren’t connected to the West, but they were westernized and admired the West. They played a role in whitewashing Reza Khan’s government. These people will also be questioned by God. Those intellectuals, whom I do not want to name, were also Reza Shah’s accomplices in the crimes that were committed against the Iranian nation. This is also a point.

So, Reza Shah became a British agent in Iran. In the meantime, World War II began. In World War II, Reza Shah’s own nature caused him to be inclined toward Germany. He liked the sort of things Hitler did, and he became fond of the Germans. The British realized this and decided he was no longer of any use to them. Therefore, they overthrew Reza Shah in 1320 AHSh [1941]. The same people who brought him to power overthrew him!

They overthrew him and replaced him with his son with certain conditions. They told him that he must do this and that and that he should behave in a certain way. He accepted those conditions. They even told him he was not permitted to listen to a certain radio channel and he accepted. That’s how far they went! So, the British were governing things up until this point. 

The 1320s [1940s] was the decade of the gradual decline of Britain’s power. People resisted, India gained independence, some African and other countries gained independence, and Britain became weak. Britain’s weakness resulted in the US stepping forward. In the mid-1320s, the US stepped into Iran. They started gradually and in an [apparently] friendly way, with Truman’s “Four Point Program” and other things that are very detailed.

Sometimes they would even agree with and support England’s opponents in order to gain favor with the people. Unfortunately, they were able to cause some politicians who were not affiliated with England to become dependent on them, and they gained their favor. That is how the US behaved in Iran. First, they started kindly and showed that they had no intention to colonize Iran. This was the case until a nationalist government was formed, Mosaddeq’s government. Mosaddeq was actually optimistic about America, due to his gullibility, negligence, or naivety — whatever you want to call it. Mosaddeq was against England and he was hopeful that the US would help!

That is what relying on foreign governments is like. When that government was formed and showed that it was not and could not be a government that was dependent on the US, the US launched a coup d’état on the 28th of Mordad [August 19, 1953] and overthrew the government. They were the cause of many tragedies in Iran.

Once the US was unmasked and it was proven that they were not a kind government or a friend of Iran, they did everything they could. The Americans took all of the country’s affairs into their own hands. They made the country completely dependent on themselves, both politically and economically. They allowed the Zionist regime to enter Iran. The Americans did this. The Americans first allowed Zionists into Iran and they established SAVAK [Pahlavi regime’s secret police]. SAVAK was a center of complete, utter violence and brutality toward people, protestors, and opposition groups. They would ruthlessly suppress even the smallest opposition.

All these took place during the period of the US domination, during the 1330s and 40s [1950s and 60s] and the like. They brought tens of thousands of military advisors to Iran and made the Iranian nation pay for their heavy costs. Weapons, the purchase of weapons, choosing who to buy them from, at what price, and how to pay for and receive them were all in the hands of the US.

They spread organized corruption. That is, in the 1330s and 40s — it peaked in the late 1340s and early 1350s — moral corruption was spread in Iran in accordance to the precise, careful planning of the US in order to pull the youth into corruption. Obviously, a corrupt young person does not have the strength to resist or oppose. They wanted to weaken the Iranian youth. There was backwardness in science, backwardness in technology, increased moral corruption, and a horrifying increase in class discrimination. All of these took place during the period of America’s control of the government and the infiltration of the US into Iran. 

They continued this enmity and once the Revolutionary movement become strong, they felt threatened and increased the intensity of their actions. Even about one week after the victory of the Revolution, an important American general by the name of Huyser came to Iran to launch a coup, if he could, by killing hundreds of thousands or even millions of people — that was their intention, this is what Huyser wanted to do. Of course, the Revolution had reached a point where their schemes were useless.

A strong determination such as that of the magnanimous Imam Khomeini stood in front of them. They wanted to launch a coup and they declared martial law. Imam told the people to go into the streets. He broke the martial law and overturned their plans, so they were defeated. Huyser realized there was no use, so he fled Iran. Of course if he had stayed another four or five days, he would probably have been among the first to be executed after the Revolution. He was lucky to have left in time.

So, this is the story behind the US and Iran. When you say “Death to America,” this isn’t just a slogan. It’s a roadmap, and what I just mentioned is the reason behind it. For many years, from the mid-1330s until the victory of the Revolution — that is, in the last years of the 1350s — for 30 years, the US did everything it could in Iran against the Iranian people. They struck us anyway they could, causing financial, economic, political, scientific, and moral damage, yet the Revolution was victorious in such a situation. The Revolution was faced with this kind of corrupt government and this kind of destructive infiltration, but with the help of God, with the efforts of the people of Iran, and with the leadership of the magnanimous Imam the Revolution was victorious.

Right now, what Huyser wanted to do in Iran, the US is doing in Gaza. It is the same story. The same thing is being done in Palestine. The Zionists, who are ruling over occupied Palestine and oppressed Palestine, are supported by the US. If it weren’t for the support of the US and its arms support, the corrupt, fake, fictitious government of the Zionist regime would have collapsed the very first week. The US is supporting them.

Today, there are events taking place in Gaza that they would have done in Iran if they could have. The tragedy in Gaza, which is being carried out by the Zionists and actually at the hands of the US, is an unprecedented tragedy in history. In three weeks, nearly 4,000 children have been killed by them! Where have you seen such a thing in history?

The Islamic Ummah needs to know what the truth is. It needs to identify what is happening in the field. The war in Gaza isn’t a war between Gaza and Israel. It’s a war between falsehood and truth, a war between the Arrogant powers and faith. On one side is the power of faith, on the other side is the power of the Arrogant powers. Of course, the Arrogant powers gain power using bombs, military pressure, bombardments, tragedies, and crimes. But the power of faith will overcome all of these by God’s grace.

Our hearts are bleeding because of the sufferings of the Palestinian people, especially the people of Gaza. We are upset. However, when we take a closer look at what is taking place, we realize that the victors in this battle are the people of Gaza and Palestine. They have been able to do great things.

First of all, the people of Gaza have removed the false mask of human rights from the faces of the US, France, England and the like with their patience, resilience, and refusal to surrender. They have disgraced them! The people of Gaza have been able to stir the human conscience with their patience.

See what is happening in the world today. In Western countries, in England, in France, in Italy, and in states across the US itself people are coming out in huge numbers to chant slogans against Israel and in many cases against America. Their [these countries] reputation has been ruined. They truly have no solution for this. They cannot justify it [what they’ve done]. Thus, you see some fool comes and says, “Iran was behind the rally in the UK”. “The London Basij must be behind this!” or “The Paris Basij must have done this!” [Audience laughs and cheers].

One of the many shameless actions of Western politicians and Western media these days is calling the Palestinian fighters “terrorists.” Is a person who is defending his own home a terrorist? Is a person who is defending his own country a terrorist?

Back when the Germans occupied Paris in World War II and the French were fighting the Germans, were the French fighters “terrorists?” Why were they considered fighters and a source of pride for France, but you consider the youth of [Palestinian Islamic] Jihad and Hamas to be terrorists? You are shameless! The people of Gaza and the Palestinian fighters have exposed the liars of the world!

One of the important things that the Al-Aqsa Storm [Operation] did was to show how a small group — the Palestinians are less in number than they are — with little supplies and provisions, but with faith and determination, was able to burn down and put an end to the result of many years of the enemy’s criminal efforts in a matter of hours. They [the Palestinians] showed how they were able to humiliate the world’s Arrogant governments. The Palestinians humiliated both the usurping regime and the supporters of the usurping regime with their actions, their courage, the measures they took, and the patience that they are demonstrating today. This is a great lesson. Of course, these [Zionists’] crimes shook humanity. They shook everyone.

I said this a few days ago, I will repeat it again now: There is more expectation from the Islamic world. Muslim governments should realize that if they don’t help Palestine today — everyone must help in any way they can — they have helped Palestine’s enemy, which is the enemy of Islam and humanity, to get stronger. And tomorrow this same danger will be a threat to them. What Muslim governments must insist on is an immediate end to the crimes that are being committed in Gaza.

The bombings must be stopped immediately. Muslim governments must block the export of oil and essentials to the Zionist regime, and they must stop economic cooperation with the Zionist regime. They must raise their voices in all international assemblies to condemn these crimes and atrocities. This must be done without any hesitation or faltering. When there is an Islamic assembly or an Arabic assembly, the talk of the few people who speak there mustn’t be ambiguous or faltering. They must clearly state what they have to say so that it becomes apparent what is taking place. The Zionist regime must be condemned. The entire Islamic world must take action against the Zionist regime.

Of course, the blow that the Zionist regime received is irreparable. I said this at the start and I emphasize and repeat it again now. This has gradually been revealed in the words of the elements of the Zionist regime as well that the blow they received is not a blow that can be compensated. They cannot compensate for this. The Zionist regime is desperate and confused now. It’s even lying to its own people. The Zionist’s expressions of concern about their own captives who are in the hands of the Palestinians is also a lie. The bombardments they are carrying out may kill their own captives as well.

The fact that they are expressing concern for their own captives means they are also lying to their own people. And they are lying because they don’t have any choice. The Zionist regime is bewildered, it is distressed, it doesn’t know what to do, and whatever it does is out of its desperation. In other words, it doesn’t understand what it needs to do. If it doesn’t have America’s support, the Zionist regime will definitely be crippled in a matter of days.

The Muslim world must not forget that in this important, crucial matter, those who stood against Islam, a Muslim nation, and the oppressed Palestinians were the US, France, and Britain. The Muslim world must not forget this. They need to understand this in their dealings, calculations, and analyses. They must not forget who is standing against and putting pressure on these oppressed people and this oppressed nation. It is not just the Zionist regime.

Of course, we have no doubt that “Allah’s promise is indeed true” (Quran 30:60). God’s promise is true. “And do not let yourself be upset by those who have no conviction” (Quran 30:60). Do not let those who are uncertain about God's promise make you waver with their negativity. God willing, the ultimate victory, which is not too far away, will be for the Palestinian people and Palestine.

May God’s greetings, mercy, and blessings be upon you.