Khamenei Says Iran Strike Delivered a ‘Slap’ to the U.S. Superpower Image
(Bloomberg) -- Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran had delivered a “slap to the U.S.’s image as a superpower” in this month’s military confrontation, seeking to rally Iranians around an embattled establishment as he led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years.His speech came amid unprecedented international scrutiny over the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s unintentional shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane just hours after Iran had fired missiles into Iraqi bases housing American troops without causing fatalities. That attack had been in retaliation for the killing of a top Iranian commander by the U.S.“They’re hit by strikes in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon and in Afghanistan at the hands of the power of resistance, but this strike was greater than all of those, it was a strike on prestige,” Khamenei said of the Iranian action in Iraq. U.S. officials, including President Donald Trump, who claimed to be on the side of the Iranian people are “clowns,” h
