When dictatorships stumble, they instinctively revert to their old playbook, manufacturing conspiracies, casting themselves as victims, and blaming the West for the carnage they themselves have orchestrated. Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader, delivered a textbook demonstration of this tactic during his recent televised tirade, dismissing reports that Tehran had sought communications with Washington as "a complete lie," denouncing America as a "warmongering" power, and absurdly denouncing President Trump for "starting the war in Ukraine."
This is sheer hypocrisy, grotesque, dangerous, and morally bankrupt. Tehran is actively supplying the Kremlin with kamikaze drones, the very instruments pulverising Ukrainian cities. These are not some abstract "weapons of war," but killing machines used against civilians, civilian infrastructure, and critical utilities. For Khamenei to cast himself as a champion of peace, accusing the U.S. of instigating global violence, is not just cynical, it is an insult to the memory of thousands of innocent lives destroyed by his regime and to every Ukrainian woman, child, and man who has suffered under Russian attacks enabled by Iranian drones.
Khamenei heads a regime built on violence and fear. His Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has poured resources into proxy wars, insurgencies, and brutal suppression across the Middle East and beyond, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and elsewhere. In Syria alone, Tehran's military interventions helped turn thriving cities into rubble, leaving behind mass graves, shattered communities, and millions of refugees.
At home, the mullahs' regime remains a global symbol of state-sanctioned terror, such as the mass executions of 1988, when tens of thousands of political prisoners were slaughtered and buried in unmarked pits. Despite years passing, the hangman's noose remains a central pillar of Khamenei's rule. To accuse any other power of "genocide, destruction, and displacement" is beyond hypocrisy; it is monstrous. Yet Khamenei's regime now fancies itself a moral crusader, while building nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and supplying Russian forces with drone technology that kills, maims, and terrorizes.
Perhaps the most cynical twist of all is Khamenei blaming Trump for the war in Ukraine. The notion that Washington "brought Ukraine into the war" is a perverse inversion of reality. In truth, Tehran has played a crucial enabling role. The latest public intelligence confirms that Russia is deploying the Shahed-107, an Iranian-designed drone unveiled by Iran's IRGC in June 2024, on the front lines of Ukraine. Its striking characteristics, a roughly three-metre wingspan, carbon-fibre fuselage, and a 15-kg high-explosive warhead, are tailor-made for terror strikes on civilian infrastructure, supply depots, frontline positions, and logistic hubs. Moreover, Ukrainian intelligence reports show that many of the electronic components powering Shahed-107 units continue to originate from Western countries, including the United States, Switzerland, China, Japan, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Ireland, underlining the cynical global supply chain that sustains these weapons long after sanctions.
In the same speech, Khamenei claimed that during the short-lived 12-day war earlier this year, between Iran on one side, and Israel and the U.S. on the other, Tehran inflicted more damage than it suffered, arguing the attackers "lost more lives." He framed Iran as victorious despite "some losses." But incoming open-source intelligence and Western assessments paint a different picture. In fact, Tehran's nuclear program took a serious blow. According to U.S. and Western officials, Israeli and American strikes on key nuclear facilities dealt a significant setback, delaying Iran's nuclear ambitions by as much as one to two years. Tehran's retaliatory missile and drone strikes were largely symbolic, intended for domestic consumption, not strategic gain. Interceptions, limited damage, and global diplomatic outcry all exposed how thinly built was the regime's "retaliation." Khamenei's claims of "heavy losses" inflicted on America and Israel amount to a domestic propaganda exercise, not credible military reality.
Of course, Khamenei quickly dismissed any suggestion that Iran had approached the United States for talks via a third country. To acknowledge such outreach, he insisted, would be an "admission of weakness." But that denial rings hollow, even absurd, given the well-documented patterns of Iranian diplomacy. Behind closed doors, Tehran repeatedly sends envoys through intermediaries, Oman, Qatar, and friendly third countries, precisely when the economy collapses, the rial crumples, and public discontent surges. It's standard regime behaviour, posture publicly as defiant and uncompromising, while desperately searching for relief.
Khamenei's latest outburst is not a display of strength; it is a frantic effort to cling to power. It reflects a regime fearful that its nuclear program has been set back again, aware that its already fragile economy teeters on the verge of collapse, and has been shaken by the growing boldness of protests on the streets of Tehran and other cities. It is clear the regime is anxious over global condemnation as its weapons decimate civilian targets in Ukraine and is terrified that its own people may one day demand more than clichés and empty rhetoric. In short, this speech reveals not a leader in control, but a leader petrified.
For too long, Western governments have tolerated Khamenei's posturing, allowed Iran to project itself as a victim while it exports violence abroad, crushes dissidents at home, and arms aggressors like Russia with instruments of terror. That must end. Tehran is not a defender of peace; it is a formidable threat to global stability. Its regime covers over mass graves at home, executes dissidents with brutal regularity, and exports fear and destruction abroad. To placate such a regime, or to treat its leaders as credible peacemakers, would be nothing short of complicity. The world must call this hypocrisy for what it is, not the rhetoric of justice or resistance, but the howl of a coward desperately trying to hide his own crimes. The people of Iran, and the world, deserve better than Khamenei's lies.
Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14), and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.