Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader "We Will Not Surrender"

0613 GMT: Speaking to military personnel on Wednesday, the Supreme Leader declared, "The front of the arrogance has made a maximum use of its efforts and power to force the Iranian nation to surrender to sanctions and pressures, but this nation will tolerate the difficulties since it has understood the enemy's plot and tactic and its strategic goal, and it acts upon its correct understanding and recognition." 

Ayatollah Khamenei said sanctions and pressures have failed to make the Iranian nation give up its cause and support for the "Islamic establishment". He declared that there will be massive participation in marches for t he 11 February anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

This, however, is not the interesting part of the speech --- that lies in what Fars does not report and, indeed, in what the Supreme Leader did not say out loud.

Only a few months ago Ayatollah Khamenei, like President Ahmadinejad and most senior officials, was insisting that the US-led measures were having no effect upon the "resistance economy" he proclaimed last March. Now the line is that all will "tolerate the difficulties" brought by "sanctions and pressures".

And so to the Supreme Leader's prediction for June's Presidential election, sent through a reference to its disputed predecessor in 2009:

The enemy thought that a decade of hatching plots against the Islamic Republic has yielded results, but the Iranian nation came to the scene and [punched] international opponents and opposition in the mouth, not to mention domestic mercenaries who are nothing in the face of the greatness of the Iranian nation.

from EA WorldView: EA Iran

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