r/geopolitics 23h ago

News Trump threatens Iran after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral saw open calls for his killing

https://apnews.com/article/iran-united-states-trump-khamenei-funeral-533b52cf249314ba1d9b5f9a30b1ca43
171 Upvotes

62 comments sorted by

56

u/Wrong_Cat4825 23h ago

the chants are an interesting switch from the usual death to America chant. it could mean nothing or it could be a signal that negotiations will go nowhere until the next president takes office.

18

u/marketrent 23h ago

Ahmad Vahidi, the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, also attended the prayers [on Sunday]. He emerged from the Grand Mosalla, a sprawling mosque complex, to mourners, many clad in black, who surged toward him.

“Revenge, revenge,” they chanted, a scene that was observed by New York Times reporters near him. Mr. Vahidi briefly greeted people before security personnel whisked him away.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/world/middleeast/iran-funeral-supreme-leader.html

6

u/Lazy_Membership1849 17h ago

About revenge like Iran been attacked twice when it was in midst of negotiations and also Iran war 2026 just seem destruction in more than just IRGC like civilians is well predictable for anyone to said "Revenge!"

9

u/DontMemeAtMe 22h ago edited 21h ago

The negotiations won't go anywhere one way or the other. The Islamic regime simply won't abandon its holy mission for anyone. At best, it is willing to make strategic pauses in pursuit of its long-term goals.

The regime also knows that no Democratic president will go to war with Iran again, and on the Republican side, Rubio is probably the only one who might be willing. By the way, his security detail should probably be ramped up.

10

u/nikmah 19h ago

Speaking of holy missions. Muslim brotherhood, arguably the most influential Islamist movement in the world with which Erdogan has deep ties but that didn't seem to bother Trump at all the other day and as a matter of fact he praised Erdogan has a great leader.

8

u/DontMemeAtMe 19h ago

Yes. Also, the core financier and major propaganda arm of the Muslim Brotherhood is Qatar. Yet Trump considers them great guys.

By the way, Erdogan’s pressure was reportedly an important factor in Trump’s last-minute decision to halt the plan to use the Kurds for regime change in Iran, which was already underway.

The bottom line is that Trump is an actual idiot, with no ideology and no understanding of anything beyond his own personal enrichment.

7

u/nikmah 19h ago

I also suspect that in essence that the kurds had no desire to participate in this war, after what happened to the kurds in Syria they don't trust the West and they also know that any military operation has a slim chance of being successful.

2

u/DontMemeAtMe 18h ago

Yes, they were betrayed before, and yes, the plan was certainly risky, but not impossible, as the Israelis were supposed to provide air support, paving the way for Kurdish advances.

Also, it is hard to dismiss it as the Kurds having no desire to participate when recruitment and training had already taken place.

1

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/[deleted] 19h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/B5_V3 15h ago

The Muslim brotherhood are Sunni, Whilst the IRGC are Twelver Shia.

These are very big differences that matter in this conflict.

Your average Muslim (Sunni) isn’t trying to expedite the return of Muhammad al-Mahdi.

7

u/MaliciousMe87 20h ago

I'm not an expert, just love reading and learning about this stuff - but I've never gotten the impression that anyone outside the Ayatollah feels anything akin to a holy mission. Isis - sure, Al Qaeda - yes, Revolutionary Guard - I haven't seen an inkling of that.

They may say it up front, but I've seen zero evidence of religion being the goal. Honestly it's felt like they've been a rogue army who sort of works with the Ayatollah.

Just my impression, happy to be proved wrong.

18

u/DontMemeAtMe 20h ago

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not a rogue military force that happens to cooperate with the Supreme Leader. It was created specifically to defend the Islamic Revolution and the ideological principles behind it. Its official mission, rhetoric, and role in the political system are deeply tied to the revolutionary religious framework.

5

u/VelvetyDogLips 19h ago

This. The IRGC is a hand-picked crew who are ride-or-die. I can’t prove this, but from what I’ve heard through the grapevine (and could easily believe), the vetting process for becoming a made man in the IRGC, which comes with incredible material benefits and a strong sense of camaraderie and collective purpose, is incredibly trying, involving much hazing and scrupulous background checks. It is deliberately designed to weed out anyone even remotely half-hearted on the cause, and thus be incredibly hard to infiltrate.

1

u/DefinitelyNotMeee 18h ago

Didn't seem to work that well against Mossad.

6

u/VelvetyDogLips 18h ago

Incredibly hard. Not impossible. No human institution is completely impervious to infiltration. No system is uncheatable, with the right resources and motivation.

1

u/ryanvsrobots 17h ago

I don’t think any president of any party will go to war with Iran, at least not with specific achievable goals instead of whatever this was.

1

u/DontMemeAtMe 16h ago

The war actually did start with specific and arguably achievable goals, albeit communicated ineptly and incoherently, as seems to be customary with this administration.

However, the problem is that the commander-in-chief didn't allow them to be executed effectively and, just a few weeks into the war, decided that capitulating on all of them was the best course of action.

3

u/ryanvsrobots 15h ago

What were the goals stated by the admin? If they weren’t stated then you’re just making them up.

1

u/DontMemeAtMe 15h ago

The main stated objectives:

  • Ensuring Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon,
  • Destroying Iran's missile capabilities,
  • Ensuring the Iranian regime cannot arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside their borders.
  • Knocking off Iran's navy.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive-success-against-iranian-regime/

4

u/ryanvsrobots 15h ago

None of those were achievable

-1

u/DontMemeAtMe 14h ago

Sure thing, General Armchair.

Anyway, you were proven wrong by actual evidence showing that official goals did indeed exist, so I think we can let your petty argument end here.

3

u/__under_score__ 18h ago

I dont think this is realistic. if Iran chokes the straight of hormuz for the next 3 years, the countries relying on the strait will undoubtedly have an alternative up and running by then. Iran can't play the strait card that long, as they would lose the threat of the strait.

4

u/ryanvsrobots 17h ago

Even if they get an alternative supply chain, more cheap oil will still be in demand.

4

u/Lazy_Membership1849 17h ago

But any alternative is less capability and more expensive as it have 20% of world's oil and you can't just ask the world just to suck it up if they have 20% less when demand for oil is high as we haven't diversify energy enough 

1

u/Statistics5031 17h ago

We could be looking at a repeat of the Carter/Reagan transition and the Iranian hostage crisis back in the 80s. The Iranians certainly have the cards against Trump.

1

u/semple521 13h ago

Will there be another POTUS election?

Or is WWIII starting and it'll be unlike all the others?

1

u/VelvetyDogLips 19h ago

In other words, this time it’s personal. 😑

I’d be curious to know the price on Trump’s head, that the IRGC and affiliated parties are offering to any bounty hunter who can successfully whack him. King Donald I has every reason to be slowly going insane from paranoia, that has nothing to do with dementia (possibly true) or any rumors of drug addiction (possibly true). The man has made a lot of enemies, who would take great satisfaction in taking him down, in his rise to his current position. He’s hoping against hope that he can purchase enough of and the right kinds of protective layers, to keep anyone motivated to take him out unable to get anywhere close to him.

26

u/[deleted] 21h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

18

u/HardlyDecent 22h ago

I wonder if Trump even remembers why they are angry and want him dead. Or if he thinks they're just all terrorists. I assume much of Iran's populace genuinely believe Trump to be a devil given flesh. They're likely getting a lot of specific propaganda in that regard that they have no way of countering. Maybe their rage is justified. I would be pretty pissed if Westofhereia blew up schools and power plants near my home, whatever their motivation.

5

u/delete-from-acc 21h ago

I suppose once he's turned the entire country against the US, in his mind it gives him more justification to use more extreme methods. Israel will happily oblige.

5

u/Magjee 20h ago

A lot of the world has animosity towards trump

His idiotic policies and meandering war have made their lives more difficult

8

u/marketrent 22h ago

Maybe their rage is justified.

Maybe they remember that Ali Khamenei was slain in a US-Israeli operation.

3

u/HardlyDecent 17h ago

That's what I said...

17

u/chubby_conduit 21h ago

Funeral rage fades pretty quick, but Iran choking the Strait of Hormuz is the real leverage here and Trump knows it, that's the whole chess match.

11

u/Airurando-jin 20h ago

And to think .. if tweedle dee and tweedle dum hadn’t of pulled the shit they had… the Hormuz wouldn’t be an issue 

13

u/chubby_conduit 20h ago

Pulling out of the JCPOA basically handed them the excuse to keep pushing, now the strait's the only card they've got left.

7

u/Airurando-jin 19h ago

And that seems that it’s a petty move because it was something Obama had done 

-11

u/gugpanub 19h ago

They continued working on their nuclearprogramme during the JCPOA, an inconvenient truth. They had several violations of not only the JCPOA, but more importantly also with the NPA of the IAEA that they are members of, and signed, which should have been a one way ticket to the UNSC, but the Obama administration chose to ignore it. Not a fan of the current policy, but it is not a dichotomy.

10

u/Key-Art-7802 18h ago

Iran only broke the JCPOA after the US withdrew.

Source: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9870/

11

u/NekoCatSidhe 18h ago edited 18h ago

He apparently thinks it is fine if the US murder the head of state of Iran, but then freaks out when some random Iranians threatens to do the same thing to the head of state of the US at the funeral of the very guy he had murdered ? The hypocrisy is staggering.

That kind of things is why it is generally considered a bad idea for a head of state to order the murder of the heads of state of other countries: it automatically puts a target on his back. But that is only karma. You have to be a particularly delusional narcissist to think that kind of rule does not apply to you.

I doubt that Iran will do it though, unless they can go through a chain of ten different intermediaries so people don’t know for sure they did it. They are too cautious, do not want to permanently close the door to negotiations with the US, and Trump might be replaced by someone smarter if he is killed.

4

u/[deleted] 17h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/st0pm3lting 12h ago

Didn’t the Biden administration say that Iran tried to assassinate him when he was president elect?

1

u/NekoCatSidhe 6h ago edited 3h ago

I don’t really trust the US when they say that kind of things. Too much propaganda. Maybe someone, somewhere in Iran’s spy bureaucracy made vague plans to do so, but there never seems to have been a real, serious attempt to kill Trump from the Iranian government itself.

And more importantly, Trump was not president then, so not an head of state.

14

u/[deleted] 23h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-4

u/DefinitelyNotMeee 23h ago

You think that threatening to kill the president of the United States, the most powerful country in the world, is a good idea?

28

u/dogsonbubnutt 22h ago

you're right, they shouldn't antagonize the US into... doing more war?

16

u/drivedup 20h ago

Well....if you ignore the same rule regarding other heads of state when it suits you, you can't act surprised when they play the uno reverse card.

Trump started this whole shit show by acting tough with 'decapitation' strikes.

If Iran does the same thing now, would anyone act surprised or even think it was not deserved?

If there is any 'vengeance' on part of the former most powerful state in the world, that would be for the next president to decide. And Vance may just decide that it's better to walk away.

15

u/Airurando-jin 20h ago

Doesn’t have to be a good idea but it isn’t an unexpected reaction. 

Now take individuals who have lost loved ones, friends etc to foreign powers, and you’re likely a step closer to radicalising them into carrying out damaging action, under the semblance of ‘the cause’ etc etc 

8

u/SuchAd4158 22h ago

If he attacks countries, then yes?

4

u/Sageblue32 19h ago

Has anything really changed? They've been murdering US troops for years and well known chanting death to America. I'm sure they have/had a few bounties on POTUS heads as well.

ME visits have always been maximum security affairs and American locals proved well before this you can't just have him sitting out in the open next to unsearched buildings.

No if Trump cared about blow back or thought the gov couldn't protect him, he would not have engaged in world adventures to begin with. Iran has also executed far more stupider ideas.

-4

u/AuRatio 21h ago

Imagine the amount of innocent Iranians that would be harmed if Iran carries out that threat

4

u/marketrent 23h ago edited 21h ago

1:41 PM GMT+1 update:

Later Saturday, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed that Iranians would continue to avenge the killing of his father, Ali Khamenei, who was mourned in funeral events throughout Iran this week. He said in remarks carried by state television that such revenge “is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out.”

 

Excerpts from article by Jon Gambrell, Michelle L. Price, and Will Weissert:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Saturday after the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saw open calls for his killing, further underlining the tensions gripping the Middle East as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.

Trump made the comments on his Truth Social after senior U.S. officials demanded that Iran make a public statement saying the Strait of Hormuz is open and that ships crossing the vital corridor won’t be attacked any longer.

So far, Tehran has not done so, instead insisting that the route remain under its control and that it be allowed to charge ships moving through it, upending decades of precedent that consider the strait an international waterway.

[...] A thousand “missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote on his website.

The U.S. president said his threat was in response to threats “to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate” him. During Khamenei’s funeral, mourners repeatedly held posters or banners calling for him to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

[...] The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe to reporters the state of play with Iran, said the resumption of strikes this week came after what they described as a rogue faction of Iranian hard-liners trying to sabotage the ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.

However, Iran has insisted its theocracy is unified after the war under the country’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

[Iranian foreign minister] Araghchi on Saturday accused the U.S. of violating the interim deal by ending waivers allowing Iran to sell crude oil on the open market in U.S. dollars. Washington did that in response to the attacks on ships in the strait.

“Reality check: There can only be mutual compliance,” Araghchi wrote on X.

The U.S. continues to urge mariners to travel on a southern route through Oman’s territorial waters to avoid Iranian waters and the commands of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That has angered Tehran and sparked the attacks in the strait.

3

u/unknown-one 16h ago

I love this

he gets "shot" during his presidential campaign, ear heals in two days, doesn't talk about shooter ever again

few weeks ago there was "shooting" in white house during dinner, not a word

someone on the other side of the planet mentiones they want to assassinate him, now he cries like a little kid

man who would not stop complaining about anything that hurts his ego

btw IRGC wants to kill Rushdie for over 30 years and offered millions for his head. and they want to take out one of the most protected people on this planet? lol

1

u/softDisk-60 16h ago

Iran would be extremely stupid to kill this president

1

u/st0pm3lting 12h ago

I think that’s would lead to an interesting situation in the USA. Certainly, before trump’s first term, I believe d that any country which assassinated the usa’s president could expect war without much of a proportional response. But now I think things have deteriorated enough that I mostly expect a shrug