TEHRAN ― Iran’s turn to harder line postwar politics has been on full display during funeral rites for the country’s assassinated supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, from the reappearance of senior military leaders to calls for revenge amid national mourning.
After foreign dignitaries and senior Iranian officials convened for ceremonies in Tehran, culminating with a giant procession through the heart of the capital, the funeral events on Tuesday shifted to 95 miles south to the city of Qom, the country’s seat of Islamic learning.
The gatherings have been “immortalized in the history of this sacred land,” Iman Attarzadeh, a spokesman for the committee overseeing the funeral, said. A eulogy played in Tehran was also broadcast in Qom: “Until your last moment you stood firm like a mountain for Iran.”
After two months of attacks by the United States and Israel, two of the world’s most powerful militaries, the surviving Iranian regime was eager to use Khamenei’s highly-choreographed funeral to project strength and popular support to a global audience.
The events appeared to do just that, drawing enormous crowds. They also demonstrated at least a basic level of competence, with planning and safety measures proving sufficient to avoid the deadly incidents that have plagued previous Iranian state funerals of this scale.
The presence of senior Iranian officials, many in public for the first time since the war, also appeared to amplify calls for vengeance that rippled through the ceremonies. Khamenei, who was 86 when he was killed in an airstrike on the first day of the war, led Iran for 37 years.
Some called directly for revenge killings of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The presence of millions of people with red flags and slogans, demanding bloodshed, is a clear message from the Iranian nation to its enemies,” said the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.
The remarks by Zolghadr, whose predecessor Ari Larijani, was killed in an Israeli attack in March, were carried by Tasnim News, a state-run agency with close ties the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Ahmed Vahidi, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps whose predecessor was also killed in the U.S.-Israeli war, attended a private mourning ceremony before the larger funeral events began.
“You will take to your graves the dream of seeing this nation surrender,” Vahidi said in remarks directed at the country’s enemies, according to IRNA, another state-run media network. “With the shedding of this pure blood, this nation will draw closer, day by day, to the heights of strength and power.”
Before the start of the war at the end of February, the Iranian regime was under perhaps the greatest pressure since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revoluation, including mass protests in January that drew millions onto the streets and forced a severe and bloody crackdown.
Trump at the start of the war urged Iranians to overthrow their government. “To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump said. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
Instead, when the missiles and bombs stopped falling and daily life began to return, the regime was still in place.
Day after day, during the funeral events, which began on Friday, calls for revenge appeared to grow louder, from banners and posters to chants and speeches.
Much of the imagery that accompanied the funeral rites, was carefully orchestrated by the Islamic Republic. T-shirts, stickers and posters of the funeral’s official symbol, a clenched fist, and slogan “we must rise,” we distributed on a mass scale to mourners.
The crowds also were boosted by government support, from free transport to the capital, Tehran, to accommodation provided in emptied schoolhouses and other government buildings.
Iran heavily supported news coverage of the events. Hundreds of Iranian journalists were dispatched to follow every twist and turn of the proceedings and dozens of foreign news organizations were given rare visas to travel to Iran to cover the events under tight rules.
However, Iran is a country of 90 million and other evidence suggests the Islamic government is deeply unpopular. Many blame Khamenei for pursuing policies that not only debilitated Iran’s economy, but also accuse him of dragging the country into war twice within a year.
Even during the funeral, Iranian forces maintained an aggressive stance in the Strait of Hormuz. On Tuesday, a tanker was reported on fire off the coast of Oman, according to U.K. Maritime Trade Operations. Iranian media said it was hit after ignoring warnings.
While the United States lifted its blockade of Iranian ports after the two sides agreed to a preliminary deal to extend a fragile ceasefire, Iran has refused to allow traffic in the strait to take routes other than a the path that brings vessels through Iranian territorial waters.
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