U.S. Not 'Untouchable,' Iran Says

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday the United States should not be considered an "untouchable" power amid rising geopolitical tensions between the eastern and western worlds.

Appearing before a group of students on the country's "National Day of Fight against Global Arrogance"—the country's name for the day marking the anniversary of Iran's 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran—Khameini said that the modern U.S. is "very vulnerable" and that the country is no longer the world's dominant power, Iranian state TV reported.

The comments come amid what has essentially become a "proxy war" in Ukraine between NATO-aligned forces in the west and Russia, which is currently allied with nations like China in the east, as well as the current Iranian regime, which has supplied it with weapons.

In October, the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported the discovery of Iranian-made "kamikaze" drones being deployed in Russian aerial assaults on civilian targets in the country. And today, several Iranian-American citizens remain prisoners in Iranian prisons on espionage charges after criticizing the current regime.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have continued to mount following the dissolution of a nuclear weapons pact struck between the two countries at the close of the Obama administration. After former President Donald Trump ordered the 2020 killing of the country's top general, Qassem Soleimani, a new deal has remained elusive as Tehran and the Kremlin have grown increasingly intertwined.

"It is not on our agenda," U.S. envoy for Iran Rob Malley said of a future deal during a Monday appearance at the Carnegie Endowment. "We are not going to focus on something which is inert when other things are happening...and we are not going to waste our time on it...if Iran has taken the position it has taken."

Some fear that further escalation could be coming. On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported Saudi Arabia had shared intelligence suggesting Iran could be preparing for an imminent attack on the kingdom, potentially drawing the U.S. into involvement in defending another key geopolitical ally in the region.

"We are concerned about the threat picture, and we remain in constant contact through military and intelligence channels with the Saudis," the National Security Council said in a Wednesday statement. "We will not hesitate to act in the defense of our interests and partners in the region."

Khameini's comments also centered around the legacy of U.S. intervention in Iran, with an intent focus on the conditions feeding into the more than 14-month siege of the embassy in the late-1970s during a time of unrest within his own country.

At the time, supporters of the Iranian Revolution, which sought to overthrow the U.S.-backed authoritarian ruler of the country, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, stormed the American embassy in Tehran seeking his return to the country to stand for myriad transgressions committed on the throne.

There were also allegations—since proven through leaked documents cataloged by George Washington University—that the U.S. was attempting to destabilize the newly-installed regime under hardline ruler Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who would go on to found the Iranian government that remains in place today.

As nationwide protests have raged on against the government, Khameini blamed the U.S. and Israel for "fooling" the country's youth and accused both countries of backing armed terrorist groups to foment unrest following the killing of a 22-year-old woman by the country's "morality police" for violating a law requiring women to wear a head scarf.

As protests have continued, some have called for the west to denounce the regime more forcefully. On Wednesday, the U.S. became the second country to announce it would support a resolution to remove Iran from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, joining Canada.

"Given Iran's brutal crackdown on women and girls protesting peacefully for their rights, Iran is unfit to serve on this Commission," Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement following the announcement. "To the protestors: we see you and we hear you."

Newsweek reached out to the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.