Anger and vengeance in the air as Iran buries its longest-serving leader

It was a historic week in Iran.

The country buried a grave for the second time in the nearly 50-year history of the Islamic Republic. supreme leader. Ali Khamenei He ruled Iran for nearly four decades as a spiritual leader and iron-fisted autocrat. He is the only leader that many people in Iran know.

Later, as the funeral frenzy reached its peak, US bombs and missiles lashed out across the country in retaliation for Iranian attacks on civilian ships in the Strait of Hormuz. If it had happened just a few months ago, these attacks would have been an earthquake for the region. But after two wars in nine months, there was a weary sense of resignation when news of the airstrike reached Tehran on Wednesday.

Just one week I spent in Iran’s capital offered an eye-opening perspective on where the country is today.

show of force

The government claimed that more than 10 million people attended funerals of the late Ayatollah Khamenei this week. An independent assessment of the numbers is almost impossible, but hundreds of thousands of people in Tehran flooded the streets for at least Monday’s funeral. Much of the 20-kilometer (12-mile) march route was a stream of black-clad mourners carrying red flags of martyrdom and revenge.

Although many in Tehran chose to walk away (literally) from the funeral—we headed towards Tehran, bypassing traffic jams while locals left the city to enjoy a nationwide holiday elsewhere—the funeral events were filled with Shiite and government loyalists.

The sheer weight of support evident this week calls into question the idea that regime change in Iran is a viable proposition for Iran’s enemies abroad; After all, US President Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to overthrow their leadership when the US and Israel launched a war on the country in February.

boiling anger

Funeral events, especially the parade into Tehran on Monday, were highly emotional affairs. This is not unusual among followers of Shiite Islam, whose tradition is one of the external manifestations of the faith. But the funeral seemed deeply personal for many of those present.

“I even loved him more than my father. It’s like I lost my father again,” 30-year-old Nafiseh Sedat Sadri told CNN. he said. “I feel like I’m an orphan, my heart hurts.”

“He was our leader. He was a great man,” said Fatemeh, 25. “I will continue his path.” He had spent the night driving from the central Iranian city of Kashan to attend the funeral.

Others wanted revenge.

“We came here to avenge the blood of our leader and we will not put that aside even for a moment,” a young woman named Mahtab Ehsani told CNN as the crowd waited for Khamenei’s coffin on Monday. “Blood must be paid with blood.”

“We will not rest until we kill Trump,” Tehran cleric Ghassem Kalateh said.

The call also came from the authorities. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Thursday that this week “is not just a farewell ceremony and mourning, but also a call for revenge for that beloved figure signed by millions of mourners.”

Anger at America and, above all, at Trump was everywhere. Dozens of mourners arrived every day vowing to kill the US president to avenge the murder of their leader.

Throat-cutting gestures and chants of “Kill Trump” and “Death to America” ​​were common reactions when confronted by a team of international journalists; but the CNN team also encountered “welcome” greetings, polite questions, and selfie requests.

The atmosphere was much darker in this year’s Ramadan battle.

While many people feared for their safety as US bombs fell without warning from Iran’s night skies, there was much more open hostility on the street. As the country grappled with the uncontrollable rain of bombs falling from the sky, public anger became even harsher.

Painful choice

This doesn’t mean we just blindly obey the party line.

“I criticize the authorities of my own country,” Tayyebeh Sadat, a government employee from Tehran, told CNN. “While they should have given the necessary response to people abroad, they did not. The negotiations were against the will of the nation. They negated all the efforts of our armed forces.”

This week, the slogans “No negotiations with the devil” and “Damn those who negotiate” were written in chalk on the walls separating men and women of the huge Mosalla mosque complex where Khamenei is located. Meanwhile, in the video circulated on social media this week by both pro-government and anti-government accounts, it was claimed that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi showed a stone thrown at him while walking on the streets of Tehran. CNN has not been able to independently verify the video.

Loosening American-led punitive sanctions is at the heart of any deal negotiated with the United States. Still, some would prefer dire economic hardship to the Iranians over a deal with the Trump White House.

The country is currently struggling with unemployment at around 8 percent, according to UN estimates, and inflation, which is above 40 percent according to World Bank estimates. Even before the war, the economy was struggling: National income per capita had fallen from about $8,000 in 2012 to $5,000 in 2024.

The government has been shutting down the internet it has also stifled parts of the economy, especially those with foreign customers and those connected to the world wide web.

What is clear is that Iran has no trust in the United States. Ongoing negotiations were twice broken down by US-led bombing campaigns. During his first term, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement, which took years of careful negotiations with European allies to weave together.

see differently

Before the MoU and fragile ceasefire collapsed on Wednesday, it was clear that the two sides read the agreement very differently. Take Article 5: Iran will “use its best efforts to make arrangements for the free safe passage of commercial ships for 60 days only…” and then says Iran will discuss “future management and maritime services” with neighboring Oman.

The Trump administration has repeatedly said this means a return to pre-war, free passage conditions for the strait. In Iran, Tehran read the same article slightly differently, allowing them to plan maritime service fees (tolls by another name) for transit ships. According to Iranian officials, the Iranians also considered themselves responsible for determining the conditions of passage through the strait.

As with many things, the view from Tehran looks very different.

CNN operates in Iran only with government permission but retains full editorial control of its news.

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