TEHRAN – Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered on Tehran streets Thursday for the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and burning American and Israeli flags.
The commemoration, long a venue for voicing anti-Western sentiments of the Iranian people, typically draws large crowds each year. Last year, authorities canceled the event due to the still-raging coronavirus pandemic but on Thursday, at least 800 cities across Iran staged demonstrations.
Protesters hoisted an effigy of President Joe Biden wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Star of David, drops of red paint dripping from its mouth.
In a speech to the crowds, Gen. Hussein Salami, chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), denounced the United States as a “dictator-making factory” and took aim at what he called American aggression in the region, declaring that “children of this nation (Iran) will stand bravely against any power that wants to damage their interests.”
On Wednesday, the eve of the 42nd anniversary of the embassy takeover, IRGG commandos thwarted a U.S. seizure of a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Gulf of Oman and freed the vessel.
In his speech to the throngs outside the building that once housed the U.S. Embassy, Gen. Salami lauded the IRGC for its operation, saying the Americans tried “to take our oil,” and support “pirates.”
“We are serious in defending our homeland,” he declared.
Gathered Iranians waved flags and raised portraits of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the legendary commander assassinated in early January 2020 in an American drone strike in Baghdad ordered by former president Donald Trump.
The commemoration marks the dramatic day when revolutionary Iranian student demonstrators overran guards and pushed into the embassy compound on Nov. 4, 1979, enraged that President Jimmy Carter had allowed Iran’s fugitive Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi to take refuge in the United States.
A few embassy staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA.
The fall of the U.S.-allied shah transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded Americans dealt a serious blow to America’s bloated image. Ultimately, as Carter left office, all 52 captive American diplomats freed.
“The Americans are used to constantly suffering defeats at the hands of the Iranian people, but of course, this has not yet become a lesson for them. The decline of the United States has begun, and on the contrary, we have increasingly been boosting political vitality and revolutionary enthusiasm and our establishment has been reaching higher levels of power day by day,” Gen. Salami said.
The IRGC advises “everyone to correct their calculations about Iran and recognize the power of this nation and its grandeur. We have said that we are the anchor of security in this region and we also tell our neighbors that there is no need to seek help from those who are unable to provide themselves with security,” he said.
Referring to the US warmongering across the globe, Gen. Salami said that Washington has waged more than 40 major wars in 40 parts of the world.
Over 8 million deaths have resulted from direct wars waged by the U.S., which has recorded more than 200 interventions in the internal affairs of other countries in the form of coups, economic sanctions, military invasions and civil sedition plots, he added.
The IRGC chief also said Washington, through more than 750 U.S. military bases abroad, has sought to establish a widespread political dominance, stressing that the United States has turned into “a factory producing dictators all over the world.”
“The Islamic Revolution of Iran disrupted the atmosphere of political domination, and a unique and amazing victory over American policy occurred. It shattered the American political order that sought to rule half of the planet. This was the beginning of a great jihad on the part of the Iranian nation to recover the grandeur it had lost.”