Khamenei says US pursuing territorial ambitions in South America

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Western powers, led by the United States, exert pressure on nations — including in Latin America — to expand influence and control resources, adding that the “central goal” of such pressure on Iran is to force an identity shift.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the birth anniversary of Fatemeh Zahra — the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad and a revered figure in Shia Islam — Khamenei said the motives behind what he called hegemonic pressure differ across regions.

“Sometimes it is about expanding territory,” he said, pointing to “what the Americans are doing with some Latin American countries.”

He said pressure can also target economic foundations. “They apply pressure so they can take a country’s underground resources — its oil, for example,” he said.

Khamenei added that Western states also push to “reshape cultural and religious life,” often by influencing lifestyles and social norms through media. “They try to change how people live, think and believe,” he said.

But he said the most consequential objective is what he described as an engineered identity transformation. “More fundamental than all of these is the effort to change a nation’s identity,” he said.

Khamenei added that attempts to alter Iran’s cultural and religious foundations stretch back a century. “For a hundred years they have tried to rewrite who we are — our religion, our history, our culture,” he said. “The Islamic Revolution cleared that away, but the pressure continues. And resisting this pressure is essential.”

Iran ‘advancing’ despite challenges

Khamenei said Iran is progressing despite economic and political pressures. “By God’s grace, the Islamic Republic is moving forward,” he told the audience of religious reciters. He said Iranians continue to show the world that Islam stands for “steadfastness, strength, honesty and justice.”

He also said the country faces a sustained “media and propaganda war” aimed at undermining public morale. “The enemy learned it cannot gain this land through military pressure,” he said. “So it turned to changing hearts and minds. We are standing firm, but the threat is real.”

US–Latin America tensions as backdrop

Khamenei’s remarks came a day after the United States seized a Venezuela-linked tanker accused of transporting sanctioned Iranian and Venezuelan oil.

Washington says the tanker was part of a network tied to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s embassy in Caracas condemned the operation as an illegal act, calling it “robbery in the Caribbean Sea” and a violation of international maritime law.