Impotent Iran Threatens United States

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has responded to President Donald Trump’s call for Iran’s surrender with a threat. 

Earlier this morning, he broadcast a televised address, and his X account posted a series of tweets directly targeting the United States, warning that if Trump becomes directly involved, there will be severe consequences. 

The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him.
They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 18, 2025

It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender.
What should the Iranian nation surrender to? We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. This is the spirit of the Iranian nation.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 18, 2025

The harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) June 18, 2025

As I write, the tweetstorm continues at a rate of one every few minutes. I guess that Khamenei is not a fast typist. 

🔴 Today the Zionist regime’s power of deterrence has come to an end#Gaza pic.twitter.com/sQlTCfFpO4

— Khamenei Media (@Khamenei_m) June 16, 2025

Trump has been amping up the pressure, no longer calling for Iran to return to the negotiating table but instead demanding that iran surrender. 

pic.twitter.com/4sy7jjESGk

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2025

Israel’s boast that it has eliminated about a third of Iran’s mobile missile launchers appears to be accurate. Iran keeps upping the rhetoric, but its attacks on Israel peaked a few days ago and are declining in number and severity. 

Iran pledged that last night there would be a huge surprise and a “night to remember for centuries”

Did anything happen?

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 18, 2025

Iran has been making a lot of boasts about the damage it is and will be doing to Israel, but its drones are unable to get through to Israeli cities or military bases, and its waves of ballistic missiles get smaller every time they fire one. At the beginning of the war, there were multiple waves of 100 a night; last night, it seems that about 30 were sent, all intercepted by defenses. 

In this new video message from #Iran‘s regime’s supreme leader, the video quality is notably lower than usual coming from Khamenei’s Office. pic.twitter.com/x4iNA2R4wZ

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) June 18, 2025

Iranian state media broadcasts a homoerotic hand lovingly stroking a teeny weeny nuclear missile. The caption says, “Maybe.” Put your little thing away, Khamenei. Please put it away! pic.twitter.com/QOYDOe7DsV

— Mike (@Doranimated) June 18, 2025

Far from projecting strength, all this has the feel of Baghdad Bob making boasts as the world comes crashing in around him. 

The big, unanswered question is whether Iran has effective terror cells in the United States prepared to strike the homeland from within. Iran has less and less ability to damage US interests in the region, and has not closed the Straight of Hormuz, suggesting that its ability to do so has been degraded. 

A series of strong blasts have been heard in east Tehran, according to AFP on Wednesday

More here⤵️ https://t.co/XJwG8Sblk8

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) June 18, 2025

It has no friends in the region save its proxies, and those proxies have been devastated by Iran and the United States already. Russia has withdrawn support for the regime. Most of Khamenei’s top leadership is already dead, and Israel appears capable of knocking out their replacements within hours or days of their ascension to power. 

As I said yesterday, it’s pretty clear that regime change is the goal that Israel is shooting for, and demonstrating the impotence of the Iranian regime is the means to do so. It’s unclear if the US is committed to regime change, and . 

SCOOP — Direction of travel: “The movement right now is away from diplomacy and toward U.S. involvement,” a Trump administration official tells my Playbook colleague Dasha Burns. “We are moving toward taking out Iranian nuclear facilities.” If confirmed, it would mark a seismic moment in Trump’s presidency. The world will be watching closely in the hours ahead.

Timing is everything: As we know, any U.S. intervention would likely involve USAF B-2 bombers flying stealth missions to destroy Iran’s largest nuclear sites, including the sprawling underground network at Fordo. AP reports each B-2 bomber “would have to make the 30-hour round trip from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, refueling multiple times” — which might explain why we’ve seen no direct U.S. action just yet.

But here’s the key point: The White House firmly believes U.S. involvement can be restricted to a series of tactical strikes against specific facilities, without descending into an extended war. “No one in the West Wing is talking regime change,” the same administration official tells Dasha. “It’s not regime change. It’s taking out their nukes.”

Good luck with that: It’s certainly possible the U.S. could deliver carefully targeted strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites with no real comeback. After all, Iran’s most powerful allies, Russia and China, have been largely muted so far, and the already-weakened Iranian regime may decide it’s safest to avoid an escalation that may further loosen its grip on the country. But equally — it’s easier to start a war than to end one, as Gabriel García Márquez famously wrote. And we’ve seen these things get out of hand before.

And then there’s this: “It’s important to remember Iran has ways of fighting back beyond weapons,” POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent, Nahal Toosi, emails Playbook to say. “A former Western intelligence official told me the spy community suspects the Islamist regime in Tehran has sleeper cells in various countries to carry out attacks if it feels an existential threat. The regime also could round up Americans in Iran and effectively hold them hostage — as it has done in the past.” (There’s more from Nahal on today’s Playbook Podcast.)

I am skeptical of that point. No doubt, Trump does not want to get that deeply involved, but helping Israel destroy the pillars of Iranian power makes the fall of the regime almost inevitable. 

It’s too soon to assume that this strategy will work, but it sure seems more likely than not. Iran doesn’t seem to have a lot of arrows in its quiver.