Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger | “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” | August 5, 2026
*Anti-Americanism is expressed by the Ayatollah regime’s Constitution, school curriculum, mosque sermons and official media, explicitly and through ideologically loaded terms such as “Global Arrogance” or “World Oppression” (Istikbar-e Jahani) and “The Great Satan” (Shaytan-e Bozorg). These terms form a cornerstone of the Ayatollah’s foundational doctrine and core ideology, including its policy toward the US.
*The Ayatollah regime views the US as the mega-hurdle on the way to achieving the Ayatollah’s mega-goal: establishing the Twelver Shiite doctrine as the globally exclusive, legitimate, divinely-ordained religion. The US is also perceived as a mega-threat, culturally, geo-strategically, ideologically and religiously.
The 1979 Ayatollah Constitution
*The Constitution avoids naming specific foreign nations, in order to maintain a universalist legal framework. However, anti-Americanism is encoded through such terms as – and inferring that the US is the core of – “imperialism,” “global arrogance,” “oppression,” “foreign domination,” “belligerent hegemony,“ colonialism,” “steadfastness,” “resistance,” etc. Anti-American animus is structural rather than merely rhetorical.
For example:
*The preamble of the Constitution frames the revolution as an “anti-despotic movement” and “anti-colonialist,” committing Iran to “the liberation of all deprived and oppressed peoples in the world.” In addition: “The Iranian [Islamic] Revolution, which was a movement for the victory of all the oppressed over the arrogant, provides a basis for the continuation of that revolution both inside and outside the country.…”
*Article 2(6)(c): The Islamic Republic negates all forms of oppression, both the infliction of and the submission to it, and of dominance, both its imposition and its acceptance.
*Article 3(5): The Islamic Republic is committed to the complete elimination of imperialism and the prevention of foreign influence.
*Article 3(6): The Islamic Republic is committed to eliminate “all forms of despotism and autocracy.”
*Article 152 (foreign policy principles) declares: “The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination—both the exertion of it and submission to it—the preservation of the all-around independence and territorial integrity of the country, the defense of the rights of all Muslims, non-alignment with respect to the hegemonial superpowers, and the maintenance of peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.”
*Article 154: “While scrupulously refraining from all forms of interference in the internal affairs of other nations, it supports the just struggles of the oppressed (mustaz’afin) against the oppressors (mustakbirin) in every corner of the globe [including Latin America].”
School Curriculum
*While US policy makers rely heavily on commitments made by the Ayatollah negotiators – who are proficient in the art of the Taqiyya (dissimulation) – in the negotiation room and public arena, the most authentic and credible reflection of the Ayatollah’s apocalyptic and megalomaniacal anti-US strategy, tactics and vision is available in the Ayatollahs’ school curriculum.
*Since February 1979, dramatic US financial or diplomatic pressure and gestures have failed to induce moderation in the Ayatollah’s school curriculum and the Ayatollah’s rogue track record.
Impact-se, Iranian School Textbooks, May 2026:
*Grade 9, 2024-25, p. 31, Defense Readiness book highlights photographs, which depict 10 US sailors captured by the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf, on January 12, 2016, in a humiliating and submissive position, kneeling with their hands behind their heads.
*Grade 8, 2024-25, p. 130, Social Studies (Civics, History, Geography) condemns Sunni regimes which reject the Ayatollah dominance, while maintaining strong ties with the US or the West. They are portrayed as collaborators and traitors.
Friday Mosque Sermons
*Friday sermons in Iran are coordinated by the Policy Council of Friday Prayer Imams under the authority of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah). Friday sermons echo the Ayatollah’s anti-US rhetoric, which annually commemorate the November 4, 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, resulting in more than 50 Americans held hostage for 444 days.
For instance:
*”America is the Great Satan (Shaytan-e Bozorg), the number one enemy of the deprived and oppressed people of the world. America will not stop at anything to secure its domination over the world’s resources.”
*On November 4, 2015 – three and a half months following the JCPOA, which showered upon the Ayatollah regime mega-billions of dollars worth of US-led financial and diplomatic bonanzas, Ayatollah Khamenei celebrated the “National Day of Fighting Against Global Arrogance” (the US Embassy takeover), telling students that “Death to America” is rational and constitutionally grounded.
*In Qom, on November 3, 2023, home of the country’s largest Shiite seminary, Imam Mohammad Saeedi claimed that “Iran has struck a hard blow against the United States with its Death to America slogan.” Saeedi added: “This is not simply a slogan. It is a revolutionary strategy.” Saeedi added: “The takeover of the US spy den was a manifestation of this strategy.” Imam Mohammad Mehdi Hosseini preached: “This [anti-US] slogan has created a strategic link between Iran and other countries and created a large front.”
*“The villainous U.S. government repeatedly says that it is standing by the Iranian people. They lie. If you are standing by the Iranian people, it is only to stab them in the heart with your venomous daggers… The enemy is the global center of arrogance and domination, one great manifestation of which is America.” (Tehran Friday Sermon, January 17, 2020).
Official & State-Aligned Media (Kayhan, IRNA, Press TV)
*Kayhan (disambiguation) is Iran’s prominent hardline newspaper, whose editor-in-chief is appointed directly by the Ayatollah. Just like Iran’s State TV, Kayhan regularly portrays the US as “satanic, treacherous, arrogant, despotic, corrupt and warmongering.” “We will not rest until we have raised the banner of Islam over the White House.”
The Bottom Line
*Are US policy makers determined to avoid – or repeat – the wave of critical errors of the last 47 years, underlined by the negotiation option (launched during the 1978 negotiation with Ayatollah Khomeini), rather than regime-change?
*While preoccupied with the cost assessment of regime-change, are US policy makers considering the catastrophic cost of refraining from regime-change?! For example, the dramatic erosion of the US posture of deterrence, which would eventually yield the first ever apocalyptic (Ayatollah) nuclear power, emboldened Islamic terrorism on US soil, bolstered Chinese posture in Latin America, the toppling of all pro-US Arab regimes, which have the Ayatollah’s and the Muslim Brotherhood’s machetes at their throat, etc.
*Are US policy makers aware that – irrespective of negotiation and agreements – snakes may shed their skin, but not their nature?!
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