Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday said any warships arrayed against Tehran are vulnerable to attack as the U.S. continues to mass in Middle Eastern waters a significant naval force that President Trump has referred to as an “armada.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier such as the USS Abraham Lincoln is a formidable weapon but said it isn’t invulnerable. The Lincoln is currently operating off the coast of Oman.
“An aircraft carrier is a dangerous machine, but even more dangerous than that is the weapon capable of sending it to the bottom of the sea,” he told a crowd in the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, commemorating the 1978 uprising that toppled the ruling shah.
The U.S. is believed to have deployed about a dozen U.S. warships in the vicinity of Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei said Mr. Trump frequently boasts about the size and power of the U.S. armed forces.
“Well, the strongest military in the world might sometimes receive a blow so hard that it can’t stand up again,” he said, according to the state-owned Iranian Students’ News Agency.
Even as negotiators from both sides were meeting in Geneva over Iran’s nuclear program, Ayatollah Khamemeni boasted that the Islamic republic has outlasted Republican and Democratic administrations alike for nearly 50 years.
“I say, ‘You will not be able to do this either,” he said in a rebuke to Mr. Trump.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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