We have a strange spectacle. The war, or whatever it was, between the U.S. and Iran is over, and peace has dawned. Trump is touting his peace deal, while the Iranians are refusing to play along, and are instead making new demands, seeing Trump’s weakness and hoping he will promise that Israel will not retaliate against Hizballah’s jihad attacks in Lebanon before they give him his chimerical peace. Meanwhile, both Trump and the Iranian leadership are claiming victory. Which one has the more convincing case? Well, the Islamic Republic is still in power in Tehran. It is still screaming “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” It is refusing to give up its nuclear program, or, indeed, give an inch on anything else. Victory? Really, Mr. President?
“Tehran Friday Sermon by Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi Fard: The Iranian People Defeated the Global Arrogance Led by the United States and the Zionist Regime; American Leadership Is ‘Utterly Untrustworthy’; Crowd Chants ‘Death to America!,'” MEMRI, June 19, 2026:
Former Majles First Deputy Mohammad-Hassan Aboutorabi Fard said in his June 19, 2026 Friday sermon in Tehran, which was aired live on Channel 1 (Iran), that the Iranian people stood firm against the Global Arrogance, led by the rulers of the United States, their partners, and the Zionist regime. He added that the American leadership is “utterly untrustworthy.” Throughout the sermon, he was repeatedly interrupted by chants of “Khamenei Is the Leader!” and “Death to America!”
Wellington says
Looking bleaker by the day for the good guys. Well, it is darkest right before the dawn. Hope that applies in this “situation” but as Emily Dickinson noted in one of her poems, “Hope is a subtle glutton.”
PMK says
The Iranian people are going to have to free themselves. Please, no more stories about how pro-Western most Iranians are. How many of them have family and friends in the IRGC? We hear from apologists how the Iranian people will turn against us if we go after infrastructure in an effort to take down the IRGC. We saw in Afghanistan how, when push came to shove, the people preferred sharia to freedom. While there are many brave dissidents in Iran, they appear not to have the backing of the Iranian people. Most want to be ‘liberated’ rather than fight for their own freedom. The choice is theirs to make .
I’m willing to give Trump a chance to play his hand over the next two months and I hope he’s successful, but the Iranian people will also have to join in the game. They cannot just sit back and watch.
Wellington says
I don’t want to hear again how wonderful the Iranian people are, which we get time and time again. These people have allowed the single most horrible regime on Earth to continue for almost half a century with virtually no result in changing that regime. And before 1979, the Iranian people did exactly what to benefit mankind?
The Iranian people are pathetic and a burden to humanity. I still wish them well but I’m getting very tired of doing so. They are so dismal as a people that they make the Arabs look like they have their act together. Enough already.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I don’t quite agree for a bunch of reasons. Unlike in the earlier thread from yesterday, I’ll keep it to the 20th century
⮞ In 1906, Iran first established a constitution, becoming the first muslim country to do so. It even preceded the revolution of the “Young Turks” in 1908. There was some resistance to it by the Qajar ruler, who tried to abolish it and bombed parliament w/ the support of both British and Russian troops, but he soon died, and there were attempts to restore it. In 1921, the Qajars were permanently replaced by the Pahlavis, who also restored the constitution and that constitution ran Iran and made it a pretty civilized country, until it was abrogated in 1979
⮞ As many have noted here on JihadWatch, check out any photo or video reel of pre-1979 Iran. Like Afghanistan next door, it was a pretty civilized place, and they were a pretty civilized people. Unfortunately, they were still muslims, which would later come back to bite them, but they were more of the MINO type muslims. They were not a plague on the world then. In 1948, when Arab countries started expelling their Jews, Iraqi Jews fled to Iran, rather than Israel, since it seemed not just closer, but safer as well. In 1973, Iran was the sole holdout when Arab countries co-operated in the oil embargo against the West due to the latter’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur war
I am an optimist on Iran, but like I mention below in my response to PMK, their people will have to re-take the initiative and take on the IRGC/Basij again. Americans or Israelis can’t do it for them!
Wellington says
Thanks for your reply, Infidel. Well, written constitutions have come a dime a dozen in the last two centuries or so. France has had so many that the old joke is about a guy who walks into a library and ask the librarian if they have a copy of the French constitution and she replies, “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t carry that periodical here.”
So, being the first Muslim country to have a written constitution is, yes, worth a shout up but it doesn’t mean all that much. As for any modernity in Iran (and some other Muslim countries like Afghanistan and Egypt) in the 20th century, I say so what? It was nothing more than Islam going into a recessive period but always ready to come back in “full flower” whenever given the opportunity, and which opportunity has most definitely presented itself since the West decided to go into suicide mode beginning in the 1960s.
Finally, I do agree with that assessment that states that every people have the government they deserve. Arguably never truer than with the woeful people who make up the Persian nation as reckoned by the past 47 years. I do wish these people well but that they are pathetic as a people I see no reason to recant this take of mine about them.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I do agree w/ you on this one. The Iranians have to fight for their own freedom: it can’t be handed over on a silver platter by either the Israelis nor the Americans. Also, Reza Pahlavi’s wish that this be bloodless is unrealistic. Every revolution, except maybe the Russian Revolution of 1991 and the Velvet revolution of Czechoslovakia, has shed blood
David Lakatos says
While Muhammad was killing Christians their children were being sold in Mecca
Bean🫘 says
Wow I did not know Muhammad fought Christians at all. Where did he fight christians?
gravenimage says
Beans, there was the Battle of Mu’tah (629 CE): Fought near the village of Mu’tah, located east of the Jordan River in present-day Jordan. This was an engagement between Muslim forces and an alliance of Byzantine troops and local Christian Arab tribes (the Ghassanids).
Now, I don’t know that “Prophet” Muhammad existed historically–but certainly it is claimed that he frought Christians. And when Muslims talk about destroying “Rome”–or “Rum”–this initially meant not Rome itself, but the Eastern Roman Empire–the Byzantines.
And he also used a Christian girl–Mary the Copt–as a sex slave whom he raped and impregnated.
David Lakatos says
The children are asking why.
abu taleb says
I don’t want to discourage people, but look at the size of the crowd supporting the Islamic regime. So, if you think Iran will soon be finished because of a lot of apostates, think again, and stop deceiving people.
I do want the Islamic regimes gone everywhere, but currently it is an unreal expectation
If we want it will happen, then we should work harder to fight Islam.
Hank says
The common denominator of all the problems in Iran is Islam. It is clear that the foundation of Islam is the Quran. To make it short, the doctrine is about how to dominate, kill, hate and enmity for anyone that is an infidel. If the infidels are left alive they pay a protection racket called Jizya.
If they were all Zoroastrians it would be more peaceful. The students and young people demonstrating today want to get rid of the regime and have freedom, but it will eventually be taken over again by the Islamic mindset unless they get rid of Islam itself. Their peers in 1979, the young people and students at the time, wanted Marxism but eventually Islam took over and dominated them until today.
OLD GUY says
Islam seems to behind most of this fighting and terrorism. Yet we allow these islamic followers into America, take their money in our higher education system, allow them to hold public offices all the way from school boards to congress.
Ban ISLAM from America.
Walter Sieruk says
The United States and the State of Israel should definitely continue using the power of a strong military might against those savage despots of that “mullah regime’ of Iran.
For it all comes down to the basic rule which is “Destroy or be destroyed.” For that belligerent and bellicose regime has as to of its main themes “Death to the USA., “:and “Death to Israel “
Therefore using American Air Force and Israeli air force strikes against that dangerous tyrannical Islam of Iran is an action of basic self-defense.
As the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, rightly and wisely, in a speech had declared, “The right to self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.”
Walter Sieruk says
The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was right, when he wrote, “With every barbarous people ….force is law.” Furthermore, there is also another knowledgeable and statement which ‘Half –measures in war is madness and folly.”
Barbara says
Any agreement needs to include an end to calling the US “great satan” and Israel the “little Satan ” They can justify the changes however they want, but inciting the population to destroy us must end forever!
This regime must be removed. Unfortunately, they are not like the Japanese emperor who accepted his WW2 defeat gracefully and allowed a close alliance to develop.
gravenimage says
Tehran Friday sermon: Muslim cleric says that Iran has defeated U.S. and Israel, crowd screams ‘Death to America’
………………………………………………..
Not much of a “deal” for the civilized world…