TEHRAN – Millions of Iranians marked the anniversary of the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the first such rally since President Donald Trump returned to the White House and restarted his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting Tehran.
The annual commemoration marks the end of the rule of the American-backed Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi and the creation of the Islamic Revolution. In the morning, people gathered in public spaces across Iran, accompanied by pop songs and patriotic ballads, to celebrate the anniversary. 
President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at the iconic Azadi Square in Tehran, declared that Iran is in a “full-fledged economy war.”
“Trump comes and announces let’s talk but at the same place he announces and signs all plots,” Pezeshkian said. “If the U.S. were sincere about negotiations, why did they sanction us?”
“They spread propaganda that the country has been weak. We are strong.” He said Tehran “does not seek war...but will not yield to foreign pressure”.
Pezeshkian said the United States sought to weaken Iran by sowing “division”.
“If we join hands, we are capable of resolving all the country’s problems,” said the  president.
People carried flags, balloons and banners as they marched toward Azadi Square in the Iranian capital despite sub-zero temperatures.
Alongside anti-American and anti-Israeli banners with slogans like “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” demonstrators also carried images of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
A demonstrator held up a poster reading, “We are going to wipe out Israel.”
Iran’s military displayed replicas of some of its missiles at the square. Children, draped in Iran’s flag, clambered over an air defense system.
People also took selfie photographers in front of a pickup truck carrying men wearing masks of Trump and Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu behind bars.
During his first term, which ended in 2021, Trump had pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran, an approach he has restored since returning to office.
Trump pulled Washington out of the 2015 nuclear deal, torpedoing an agreement that had gave Iran sanctions relief.
As he signed the order instructing U.S. departments to design new sanctions against Iran on February 4, Trump voiced optimism for a “deal with Iran and everybody can live together”.
“Negotiating with the United States is pointless because they lie,” said Parvaneh Samakhani, a 52-year-old teacher.
“Iran made many concessions, but then Trump came and tore up 

the deal,” she said, dressed in a black chador.
“You can’t trust America!” she said, as some waved caricatures of Trump and Netanyahu.
With Trump’s return to office, “history is repeating itself,” said Mehdi Sajadfar, a 24-year-old shopkeeper. “Everything is a lie” when it comes to the United States, he added, as demonstrators chanted “Death to America”.
“I know there are a lot of economic problems in the country, but I am here to say we will support our country regardless of threats by Trump and Israelis,” said Mohsen Amini, a 48-year-old teacher.
Hamideh Zamani, a 31-year-old homemaker wearing a flowing black Islamic chador, attended the rally with her two children.
“We will resist any threat by the West without any fear,” she said. “We learned this from our fathers to devote ourselves for the cause of the Islamic Republic.”
National television aired commemorations at sites across the country. Chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, crowds formed in the streets of Shiraz and Bandar Abbas in the south, Rasht in the north, Kermanshah and Sanandaj in the west, and the holy city of Mashhad in the east, according to images broadcast on television.
Attendees, many of them families, carried portraits of Ayatollah Khamenei and the green, red and white flag of Iran, as well as the banners of resisance groups such as Hezbollah.
The day, an official holiday, takes on a festival feel, with schools and government offices closed, and workers out in the streets.
The Islamic Revolution began with widespread unrest in Iran over the rule of the shah who, terminally and secretly ill with cancer, fled Iran in January 1979. Imam Khomeini then returned from exile and the government fell on Feb. 11, 1979, after days of mass demonstrations and confrontations between protesters and security forces.
Later in April, Iranians voted to become an Islamic Republic, with Imam Khomeini as the country’s first leader.
Months later, when the United States allowed the shah into the country for cancer treatment in New York, anger boiled over in Tehran leading to the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in November 1979 by students.  
Iran’s 10-day celebrations marking the ouster of the shah start each year on January 31, the anniversary of the return to Tehran of Imam Khomeini from exile.