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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that the United States struck Tehran’s nuclear facilities but “didn’t achieve much,” dismissing former President Donald Trump’s actions as “showmanship” in the wake of a recent ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
In a televised address, his first public appearance since June 19, Khamenei claimed Iran emerged victorious from the 12-day conflict and delivered “a hand slap to America’s face,” referencing a retaliatory missile strike on a U.S. base in Qatar earlier this week. The attack caused no reported casualties.
The war began June 13, when Israel launched strikes targeting Iranian nuclear sites and high-level military personnel. The U.S. escalated the conflict on June 22 with bunker-buster bomb attacks on Iran’s enrichment facilities. A ceasefire, brokered with Trump’s involvement, took effect Tuesday.
Khamenei, who had been in hiding since the war began, alleged that U.S. involvement stemmed from fears that Israel faced defeat. “The Islamic Republic was victorious,” he said.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the U.S. airstrike as “historic,” citing assessments from Israeli authorities and the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog that declared the sites “inoperable” and suffering “enormous damage.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the attacks set Iran’s nuclear program back “years,” though reports from CNN and The New York Times, citing leaked U.S. intelligence, suggested the delay may be only a matter of months. Trump and his allies have rejected those claims as “fake news.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that the U.S. “failed” to destroy the country's nuclear infrastructure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, reaffirmed his alliance with Trump, vowing continued cooperation to “defeat our common enemies.”
While the full extent of the damage remains unclear, both sides are claiming strategic victories in a conflict that left the region on edge and global powers scrambling to de-escalate.
With information from Daily Mail.
