US President a ‘criminal’, says Iran’s supreme leader Imam Khamenei

Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, holding the position since 1989, has declared that Iran considered the President of the United States to be ‘a criminal’. Imam Khamenei to his followers, Khamenei, a former president of Iran who in his current position is more powerful than the President, did not mince his words in holding US President guilty for the recent rioting in Iran.

The startling address comes within days of the US apparently pulling back from a planned attack on Iran. While President Trump of the US explained the retreat by pointing out that Iran had stopped killing protesters and had assured that nobody would be executed, the decision took the world by surprise.

Trump had actually said on 2 January that the US was ‘loaded and ready’ and had tweeted to Iranian protesters that ‘help is on the way’. He had also asked protesters to take over institutions in Iran. The dramatic statements however ended in an anti-climax when he apparently told Iranians that the attack was called off and that all options were on the table.

The exceptionally sharp attack on the US President by Iran’s Supreme Leader comes in the wake of statements by other Iranian leaders that this time Iran would not wait to be attacked but might launch peremptory strikes if war became imminent.

They had also warned the US of not messing with Iran, claiming that it had the capability of inflicting severe damages. The belligerent address by Imam Khamenei carries forward the warning to a different level. The US response is awaited.

Experts believe that the US and Israel were caught by surprise when Iran successfully jammed Starlink receivers smuggled into Iran for use by protesters and Israeli agents. Speculation is rife that Russia or China, or both, provided Iran with the technological capability of jamming Starlink, which led to the collapse of the resistance by cutting off all communication from Israel and the US.

A Tehran Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi in multiple interviews maintained that Iran has been aware of the US design to attack it for decades. “Iran has been preparing for a war with Iran for all these years and the US will make a mistake by attacking Iran,” he said.

Answering a question, he claimed that Iran was in fact stronger today than the combined US-israeli attack on Iran seven months ago, in June, 2025.    

In the address Imam Khamenei delivered, which was shared by the Iranian embassy in New Delhi on Saturday, 17 January 2026, he asserted, "We consider the President of the United States a criminal for the casualties, damages, and the slander he directed at the Iranian nation…the recent seditious rioting was orchestrated by the US. The US did the planning and took action.”

"The US President sent a message to the seditionists saying he would support them and provide military support. In other words, the US President himself was involved in the sedition. These are criminal acts…In the numerous seditions in Iran in the past, it was usually the press & second-tier US or European politicians who were interfering.

The unique feature of this sedition was that the US President himself interfered in this sedition and encouraged the seditionists,” Khamenei said while addressing followers.

In his unusually candid address, Ayatollah Khamenei conceded that rioters killed ‘several thousand people’ in recent weeks. “These ignorant criminals destroyed 250 mosques, destroyed and ruined more than 250 educational and scientific centres, struck the electricity industry, attacked banks, damaged medical facilities, attacked shops supplying people’s basic goods, harmed civilians”.

One such group consisted of individuals whom the US and Israeli intelligence services had carefully selected, identified, and taken abroad, he claimed. He acknowledged that some were trained locally on how to move, how to set fires, how to create fear, and how to evade the police and given substantial amounts of money too.