November 10, 2017
Tehranis flocked to the old US embassy compound Saturday for the annual anti-American rally held outside its walls. This year’s rally marked the 38th anniversary of the embassy seizure November 4, 1979.
Reporters said the turnout this year appeared substantially larger than in recent years, when interest had appeared to flag. It was not clear if the turnout was the result of more efficient work by the organizers in busing students and workers to the site, or if it resulted from the clearly higher level of anti-Americanism since Donald Trump became president. One would have expected a lower turnout as skies were cloudy and pollution levels were high Saturday.
The featured speaker was Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and a much higher-ranking individual than normally addresses the November 4 crowd.
He attributed the large turnout to Trump. “All governments confirm that the American president is crazy and is drawing others in the direction of suicide,” he said imaginatively. “Trump’s policies against the people of Iran have brought them out into the streets today.”
That assertion that Trump hates the Iranian people, not the Iranian state, has become a fixture of Iranian state rhetoric.
Shamkhani said Trump’s hostility has united the Iranian people and helped them humiliate the United States.
The Los Angeles Times interviewed a number of people at the rally and found no shortage of people echoing the words of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi, who has labeled the United States Iran’s “No. 1 enemy.”
Hassan Shorjeh, a retired 65-year-old teacher carrying a “Down with America” placard, said there was no point in respecting the nuclear deal if the United States didn’t hold up its end of the agreement.
“As the Supreme Leader said, American administrations have always been cunning and hostile, so I don’t see any solution for the disputes,” Shorjeh said. “The enmity with America will continue and our resistance will as well. I don’t see any solution in my child’s lifetime, let alone mine.”
Roghaye Riyahi, a 35-year-old woman wearing a black chador, said she had come to the embassy to mark the takeover for the past 20 years.
“I think that even if I live 120 years, the enmity with America will not be buried — at least not as long as America doesn’t change its hostile policy toward Iran,” Riyahi said. “In fact, today, Trump the madman has contributed to our celebration of the takeover and more people have taken part — gloriously and wholeheartedly.”
But some expressed hope for better relations and opposition to the orchestrated anti-American protests.
“I wish the hostility between the two countries would end as soon as possible because we are suffering from it,” said Hassan Mahmudi, a 50-year-old shopkeeper near the embassy. “We want to have normal relations with America and foreign investment here to create jobs for our educated youth.”
