Ayatollah Khamenei, met with commanders and personnel of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran, today, Tuesday morning, on the historic anniversary of the oath of allegiance of Imam Khomeini’s companions on February 10, 1979.

Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that the Americans were being hit today from a place they had never calculated, adding that today the two presidents of the United States – the previous president and the current president – had joined hands to destroy and sully the reputation of the United States.

The revolutionary leader added that the enemy front started a combined attack today. In this combined attack, he said, there is an economic aspect, a political aspect, a security aspect, a media aspect, a diplomatic aspect. They had launched a mass attack from all directions, he said, stressing, “We have to resist this in a combined way. We have to try in all directions.”

Ayatollah Khamenei added, “Wherever the power of truth enters the field against disbelief, the enemy with all his apparent glory and apparent courage, who has neither heart nor mind, errs in his calculations. It is always so.”

In another part of his speech, the Revolutionary Leader further recalled the 19th Bahman in 1957 (Feb. 10, 1979) and pointed out that those young officers and other ranks and comrades-in-arms of Imam Khomeini (r.a.) who attended that memorable meeting with the Imam and pledged allegiance, that allegiance was not an allegiance to a person: “That allegiance was an allegiance to goals. A loyalty to ideals. The loyalty was to this holy jihad in which the Imam was the powerful commander of this jihad.”

Ayatollah Khamenei further stated that anyone who moves in the path of these ideals at any time is indeed a participant in this movement, adding, “Therefore, you, the commanders and staff of the Air Force, are among those who enjoy this honor. The movement of the Air Force on that day was the final blow dealt to the rotten body of the Pahlavi regime, and it destroyed the ugly edifice of the Pahlavi regime.”

Referring to the dissemination of news of different media in different contexts, he said that the clearly transparent policies of anti-Islamic and anti-Iranian media distort the facts by using professional lies, adding, “They even try to beautify the image of the criminal SAVAK, and in the opposite, they distort the image of the revolution and the great Imam, completely hide the progress, facts and positive points of the revolution, and magnify the weaknesses hundreds of times.”

Ayatollah Khamenei described the media dictatorship as one of the dictatorships of the Western powers despite its claim to freedom of expression, pointing to examples such as the removal of General Soleimani’s name and photos in cyberspace. In this regard, he stressed, “They ban the publication of words or images that contradict Western policies, and in return make the most of this space to defame Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

At the end of his speech, he considered the increasing progress of the country against the will of the enemies as a promise of a better tomorrow for the Iranian people and stressed, “While the Islamic Republic has advanced with power in these 43 years and has become stronger and firmer day by day, with God’s help, this movement will continue even better in the future and the enemy will fail again.”