TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Forty years after its Islamic Revolution, Iran has no fear of a "declining” America, a senior cleric said on Friday at the start of official commemorations of the uprising that ousted the U.S.-backed monarchy.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is the secretary of the Guardian Council, used his speech to mock the leadership of President Donald Trump.
"Even many of America’s allies don’t listen to it anymore and they are not afraid of it,” he said at the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini, who returned from exile in France to lead the revolution exactly 40 years ago.
"America cannot manage its own affairs now,” Ayatollah Jannati said, adding that "millions of people are hungry there and America’s power is in decline.”  
The 1979 uprising deposed Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, a secular king allied to the West. Later that year, Iranian students stormed the U.S. embassy and held 52 Americans for 444 days.
Trump last year pulled out of an international agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran.  
Ayatollah Jannati said, "Unfortunately, some of our officials believe that we cannot manage the country without America’s help. May such wrong thoughts be damned!”
Among many programs on state TV featuring achievements since the revolution, was a short animation showing an Iranian-made Ghadir navy submarine surfacing near a U.S. aircraft carrier and other vessels.
An apparent air of triumph and perspicacity hangs in every corner, especially after hawkish U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said in 2017 that "the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday.”
"The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday. And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!” he told a terrorist MKO convention in Paris.
Iranians, however, are facing a dramatic rise in U.S. pressures through tough sanctions imposed last May, which prompted Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to warn of bigger subversive American plots for 2019.   
Imam Khomeini spent more than 14 years in exile, mostly in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf. He also spent some time in Turkey and France before his return to Iran.
Millions of people converged on the capital from across the country on the day of his return. His arrival gave considerable momentum to popular protests against the U.S.-backed regime, which eventually led to its overthrow ten days later.
The period witnessed last-ditch efforts by the regime of Iran’s former monarch to hold onto power by unleashing deadly force against pro-Revolution protesters.
The entire struggle resulting in the Revolution was led by Imam Khomeini, who successfully united the people against Pahlavi oppression and dependence on the U.S.