Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei — who inherited the gig after his father was killed in the February 28 strike during Operation Epic Fury — decided Memorial Day weekend was the perfect time to threaten the United States. In a Hajj message released May 26, Khamenei declared that "the United States not only will no longer have a safe haven for its mischief and for establishing military bases in the region but day by day, it is growing more distant from its former status." Fighting words from a regime that just got its leadership vaporized three months ago.
Cool threat, bro. How'd that work out for dad?
As Breitbart's Joshua Klein reported, Khamenei didn't stop at threatening America. He went full apocalyptic, vowing Israel's destruction and declaring that "the shaken Zionist regime and the cancerous tumor of Israel are approaching the final stages of their wretched existence." He called for "Death to America and Death to Israel" to "become the common chants of the Islamic ummah and the world's oppressed, especially among the youth." So the new Supreme Leader's big pitch to the world's young people is... a death chant. Very inspiring. Very forward-thinking.
This is particularly rich given the context. President Trump has spent months trying to negotiate a deal with Iran — an off-ramp that no rational observer thinks they deserve. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said just days ago that a potential agreement could come "in a few days." Trump himself laid out the terms plainly: "The Enriched Uranium (Nuclear Dust!) will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed." No ambiguity. No wiggle room. Hand over the nuclear material or face the consequences.
And Iran's response? Death threats and annihilation promises. On the same weekend that President Trump stood at Arlington National Cemetery honoring the 13 U.S. service members killed during Operation Epic Fury — the very operation that took out Khamenei's father — the son gets on his Hajj soapbox and promises more violence.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar had the best response, quote-tweeting Khamenei's rant with: "Sounds familiar...BTW, where are you?" Exactly. The new Supreme Leader is hiding somewhere while issuing threats against the two most powerful militaries on the planet. His father made the same threats. His father also thought Israel had about 25 years left — he said that a decade ago. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is still standing. Iran's previous Supreme Leader is not.
The Strait of Hormuz remains a flashpoint. Hezbollah — Iran's favorite proxy — has been hammered in Lebanon, with Israeli strikes pounding the Bekaa Valley. The regime's entire network of terror proxies is in tatters. And yet here comes the junior Khamenei, chest-puffed, promising that America will have "no safe haven." We have aircraft carriers. They have slogans.
Iran's own Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei is apparently still engaged with Qatari mediators on some version of a deal, which means even Iran's diplomats aren't fully on board with their Supreme Leader's suicide-by-rhetoric strategy. The regime is literally negotiating and threatening annihilation at the same time. That's not strength. That's a government arguing with itself.
Here's the bottom line. We offered them a deal. We offered them a way out. President Trump — standing over the graves of Americans who died stopping Iran's nuclear ambitions — still extended an olive branch. And Mojtaba Khamenei slapped it away and screamed "Death to America" instead.
We tried diplomacy. They chose death chants. If that's how they want to play it, we already know how this ends. Just ask his old man.