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Iranian leaders have for decades called for “death to America” while working to quietly build the country’s nuclear program before President Donald Trump ordered strikes on a trio of nuclear facilities and secured a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
“Yes, it will happen. Death to America will happen,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared in 2022, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported at the time. “Some people say: By chanting ‘Death to America,’ you bring America’s animosity upon yourself. I say that this is not true. When America began its hostility towards Iran, nobody had been chanting ‘Death to America.’”
“Death to America,” or “marg bar Amreeka” in Farsi, is a slogan that originated back in the 1970s, the Associated Press previously reported.
Protesters chanted the slogan amid the Iranian Revolution, when the country’s shah was overthrown in 1979 and Iran’s monarchy was abolished and replaced by its current government, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The slogan has remained a fixture of Iran’s views of the U.S. across the following decades, most notably after the deaths of various Iranian military leaders and as the U.S. looked to strike nuclear deals with the nation.
US AIRSTRIKE ON NUCLEAR FACILITIES FOLLOWS YEARS OF IRANIAN PLOTS ON AMERICAN SOIL
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has previously called for “death to America.” (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via Reuters)
“The hatred and rage of the Muslim people is directed toward America, the infidel Satanic regime,” Iranians chanted in 2007 ahead of a speech by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Saying ‘Death to America’ is easy. We need to express ‘Death to America’ with action,” Ahmadinejad’s successor, former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, said in 2013.
Iranian lawmakers chanted “death to America” while in the Parliament in 2019, and again in 2020, after Trump ordered a strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, while “death to America” chants have also broken out on U.S. soil following Hamas’ war on Israel that began in 2023. Iranians additionally commonly chant the phrase during their annual “Death to America Day” each November, videos show.
Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during an interview. (Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with world powers such as the U.S. in 2015 that aimed to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the U.S., U.N. and European Union lifting sanctions on the country. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA in 2018, arguing it was weak and would not prevent Iran from building its nuclear program, and instead reinstated sanctions on the country.
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Amid the 2015 discussions on the JCPOA, Khamenei declared again, “death to America” while rallying support for the agreement, the New York Post reported in March 2015.
“Sanctions must be lifted immediately,” Khamenei said to crowds of people that year as he endorsed the agreement.
The crowd broke out into chants of “death to America,” sparking Khamenei to respond: “Of course, yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure.”
Following the signing of the agreement in July 2015, Khamenei attempted to argue that the slogan did not mean literal death to American citizens, but the death of U.S. policies.
“Your ‘Death to America’ slogan, and the cries by the Iranian nation, have strong logical support behind them,” he told Iranians in Tehran, according to the Associated Press. “Obviously by ‘Death to America’, we don’t mean death to the American people. The American nation is just like the rest of the nations. It … means death to U.S. policies and its arrogance.”
The ayatollah, however, doubled-down in 2019 that “death to America” meant the deaths of U.S. leaders such as Trump.
“‘Death to America’ means death to Trump and John Bolton and Pompeo,” Khamenei said in 2019, according to the New York Times, referring to Trump’s then-national security advisor John Bolton, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“It means death to American leaders, who happen to be these people at this time,” he added.
President Donald Trump stops and talks to the media before he boards Marine One following Israel launching strikes on Iran in June. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
The slogan has been accompanied by similar “death” calls on Israel and protesters burning American flags on the streets of Tehran while holding photos honoring Khamenei.
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The slogan most recently has been used since Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran on June 12 following months of stalled negotiations related to Iran’s nuclear program and mounting concern the Islamic Republic would imminently have their hands on a nuclear weapon. The U.S. did not actively participate in the strikes on June 12 and the subsequent days, but warned Iran the U.S. could become involved if Iran did not make a deal for peace.
“The US President threatens us,” Khamenei wrote on X of Trump June 18. “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.”
“It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender. What should the Iranian nation surrender to?” he continued. “We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone.”
Iranians were seen on the streets of Tehran in June chanting “death to Israel and America” ahead of the U.S.’ strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Trump announced Saturday evening in a surprise Truth Social post that the U.S. had successfully executed strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, which he said were “obliterated” and backed the country into a corner to strike a peace deal.
TRUMP ADDRESSES NATION ON ‘SPECTACULAR MILITARY SUCCESS’ OF US STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES
“A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan,” Trump said from the White House in an address to the nation just hours after the Truth Social announcement. “Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success.”
Trump specifically cited Iran’s decades of calling for America’s death in his address to the nation following the successful strikes Saturday evening.
“For 40 years, Iran has been saying, ‘Death to America. Death to Israel.’ They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs,” Trump said on Saturday evening from the White House. “That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular.”
“I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue,” he said.
A map of Iran’s nuclear facilities (Fox News)
On Monday evening, Iran and Israel reached a ceasefire agreement, which Trump described as a massive success ending the “12 Day War.”
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“On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’ This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!” he wrote.
A demonstrator holds a picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following Israel launching strikes on Iran on June 12. (ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
Tensions are still flaring in the Middle East, as both Israel and Iran accuse each other of violating the ceasefire on Tuesday morning, with Trump urging them to put down their weapons while triumphantly declaring Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been crippled. Trump remarked to the media while traveling to a NATO summit at The Hague that he was “not happy” with Israel or Iran for the spiking tensions following the ceasefire agreement.
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“I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, okay, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,” Trump said.
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the **** they’re doing,” he added in fiery comment underscored by profanity.
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