Iran’s Supreme Leader with Revolutionary Guards commanders, Tehran, October 13, 2019

Trying to rally Iran’s people behind the Revolutionary Guards, the Supreme Leader has proclaimed that US pressure has added to the force’s “dignity”.

Ayatollah Khamenei told a Guards graduation ceremony, “The Americans, through their hostile behavior toward the Guards, have increased the IRGC’s dignity. Today, thank God, the IRGC has dignity both at home and abroad.”

Amid its comprehensive sanctions on Iran, imposed last November, the Trump Administration blacklisted the Revolutionary Guards as a “foreign terrorist organization”.

Khamenei claimed that the designation had brought the Guards more respect and admiration at home and abroad: “The enemies of God make hostility to God’s servants, and this hostility makes the image of God’s servants brighter and makes them dearer.”

Iran’s official oil exports have fallen between 80% and 95% because of the American sanctions, and the Iranian economy is hindered by falling productivity, investment, and trade; rising unemployment and inflation; and a weakened currency.

But Khamenei has maintained that the country will maintain a “Resistance Economy” of self-sufficiency to defeat the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

He called on the Guards to “be advanced and up to date…invent and manufacture them yourselves” to be able to confront the US and Israel — accused of “sucking the blood” of other nations — on the ground, in the sky, at sea, and in space.

The military equipment of the IRGC must be advanced.
During the tyrannical Pahlavi regime, we were dependent, backward and unknowledgeable in terms of military equipment. The military equipment needs to be up to date; you should invent and manufacture them yourselves.

— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 13, 2019