US President Donald Trump issued a sharp warning message for Iran on Friday — insisting that the country was “in big trouble”. The comments came mere hours after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei heralded a crackdown against protesters “ruining their own streets” for Trump. The exiled Shah of Iran has also reached out to the POTUS seeking “urgent” intervention amid a ‘total communications blackout’.
“Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago. You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too. If they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved. That doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts,” Trump said.
‘Trump will be overthrown’ insists Ayatollah Khamenei
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had earlier dismissed Trump as having hands “stained with the blood of Iranians”. Footage aired by Iranian state television showed his supporter shouting “Death to America!” and later referred to the protesters as “terrorists”. The Islamic Republic remains under a major blackout — with the government cutting internet and international telephone calls.
“As for that fellow (Trump) who sits there with arrogance and pride, passing judgment on the whole world, he should also know that usually, the despots and arrogant powers of the world–such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Reza Khan, Mohammad Reza, and the likes of them–were overthrown exactly when they were at the peak of their pride. This one will be overthrown as well,” news agency ANI quoted Khamenei as saying.
He accused the protesters of “ruining their own streets” to please the US President.
“Because he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead…They want to make him happy. If he knew how to run a country, he would run his own,” reports cited him as saying.
Reza Pahlavi shares ‘urgent’ message for Trump
The ongoing demonstrations have also included cries in support of the Shah of Iran — something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests. The protests also represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The son of the last ruler of Iran currently lives in exile near Washington DC.
““I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers. Last night they did that. Your threat to this criminal regime has also kept the regime’s thugs at bay. But time is of the essence. The people will be on the streets again in an hour. I am asking you to help. You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word. Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran,” Reza Pahlavi wrote on X.