Iran just promised a far bigger response if America attacks again
1 hour ago · 4 November 2026Share
Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, spoke to the Iranian people on November 27, 2025, about current issues of the country, the region, and the world. File photo. khamenei · CC BY 4.0
Iran's Supreme Leader just promised something bigger.
Mojtaba Khamenei says if the US attacks Iran again, Iran hits back on a much greater scale than before.
He said it earlier today. The occasion was Iran's National Day of Struggle Against Global Imperialism — the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.
So who is saying this? Not a new face. Mojtaba Khamenei is Supreme Leader because his father, Ali Khamenei, was killed in the US-Israeli strikes that started this war on 28 February. Mojtaba took over on 9 March.
So every word he says about this war, he says as the son of the man America and Israel killed to start it.
His statement does two things. First, Washington.
He says America's hostility toward Iran will not change just because power shifted in Congress. He says anyone who thinks otherwise is greatly mistaken.
And that's a direct reply to what happened a couple of days ago.
Democrats just won both the House and the Senate in the midterms, earlier this week. Donald Trump has said the Iran war was part of why Republicans lost. He told the Wall Street Journal he'd made the right call, and said he'd act the same way again.
So the thinking in Washington was simple. A weaker, war-tired White House might back off.
Khamenei just shut that down. He's saying it doesn't matter who holds Congress. Attack Iran again, and Iran's answer will be bigger than before.
Second part of his statement looks backward.
He says Iran taking control of the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran destroying American military bases in the region, were both responses to what he calls the war's crimes since February.
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Sunset view of the Strait of Hormuz. File photo. H-Karimi هادی کریمی · CC BY 3.0
Now, the exact wording shifts between translations. Reuters reports it as indirect speech, not one clean quote. Other outlets word the core warning slightly differently.
But every version agrees on the substance. Repeat the aggression, and Iran's response gets far wider.
He put one line plainly, no translation trouble there.
Quote "The US sees the end of its hegemony as distant; we see it as near."
Separately, Iran's Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted online that Americans had voted "NO TO WAR" in the midterms, and that Iran endorses that message. He added that if the US government betrays its public to serve what he called international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn Iran's No comes with a Nightmare.
And here's something not settled. Reports disagree on Ghalibaf's current title. Some call him Iran's chief negotiator with the US. Others call him Iran's Parliament Speaker. Neither is stated here as fact.
The war itself never went away. Since February it's sat in a stalemate — sporadic fire, both sides warning the other a full resumption is possible. Iran has also said this week it has a maximum deterrence plan ready, with its military updating target lists to include American and Israeli assets.
And as of now, neither Donald Trump's administration nor the State Department has responded to Khamenei's warning.
So what don't we know? What counts as renewed aggression. Strikes on Iran itself? On Iranian-linked targets elsewhere? Both? Nobody's said.
It's also not clear if a wider Iranian response would hit US allies who host American troops. Or what timeline Iran has in mind if Washington strikes again.
For now, nobody has actually done anything new. Both sides have just said what they'd do.
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