Defiant Iran taunts US as revolution turns 40

DUBAI: Hundreds of thousands of Iranians marched and some burned U.S. flags to mark the revolution’s 40th anniversary on Monday as Iran’s leaders showed off a newly developed ballistic missile in defiance of U.S. efforts to curb their military power.

Soldiers, students, clerics and black-clad women holding small children thronged streets across Iran, many with portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shi’ite cleric who toppled the Shah in an Islamic uprising that still haunts the West. "The presence of people today on the streets all over Islamic Iran... means that the enemy will never reach its evil objectives," President Hassan Rouhani told those thronging Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) square, decrying a "conspiracy" involving Washington. Chador-clad women, militia members in camouflage fatigues and ordinary citizens marched through the capital in freezing rain to commemorate the day in February 1979 that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ended millenia of royal rule.

State TV showed crowds defying cold rainy weather and carrying Iranian flags while shouting “Death to Israel, Death to America,” trademark chants of the revolution which ousted the United States’ most important ally in the Middle East. “Much to the dismay of America, the revolution has reached its 40th year,” read one banner. After decades of hostility with the United States, Tehran said it was determined to expand its military power and ballistic missile program despite mounting pressure from hostile countries to curb its defensive work.

Iran‘s president insisted “enemy” plots against the country would fail as vast crowds marked 40 years since the Islamic revolution at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.

“The presence of people today on the streets all over Islamic Iran... means that the enemy will never reach its evil objectives,” a defiant President Hassan Rouhani told those thronging Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) square, decrying a “conspiracy” involving Washington. Chador-clad women, militia members in camouflage fatigues and ordinary citizens marched through the capital in freezing rain to commemorate the day in February 1979 that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ended millenia of royal rule.

The routes leading up to the square were packed with people as loudspeakers blared revolutionary anthems and slogans. Life-size replicas of Iranian-made cruise and ballistic missiles stood in a statement of defiance after the US last year reimposed sanctions following its withdrawal from a deal on Tehran’s nuclear programme.