Iranian leader Ebrahim Raisi condemned President Joe Biden over the weekend after he voiced support for the ongoing protest movement in Iran—a set of remarks that Raisi suggested were a violation of Iran’s sovereignty and an aggressive act from Tehran’s historic adversary.

“The remarks of the American president—who is inciting chaos, terror, and the destruction of another country—serve as a reminder of the eternal words of the founder of the Islamic Republic who called America ‘the Great Satan,’” Raisi said, referring to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republic’s founder and leader from 1979 until he died in 1989.

To foil Washington’s alleged designs, Raisi insisted that his government would “[take] effective measures to resolve people’s problems,” reiterating a distinction between protesters who had legitimate grievances against the government and those who wished to overthrow it altogether. 

Although periodic protests have gripped Iran since late 2017, the current wave—prompted by the death in police custody of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Amini, an ethnic Kurd from the country’s northwest—has undoubtedly been the largest. 

It has prompted a severe crackdown from the authorities, leading to further unrest; at least 150 Iranian protesters are thought to have died in the violence. Iranian state television has claimed that twenty-six members of the country’s security forces lost their lives trying to contain them. The regime arrested thousands of demonstrators, and the Iranian government has instituted restrictions on Internet access across the country to hamper protesters’ communication abilities.

Raisi’s remarks came after Biden told a reporter on Friday that the United States “stand[s] with the citizens [and] the brave women of Iran” and claimed that they had “awakened something that I don’t think will be quieted for a long, long time.”

Iran’s foreign ministry swiftly condemned Biden’s remarks, arguing that they matched a pattern of similar aid to the demonstrations across the Western world. Iranian officials, including Raisi, supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, have accused the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Israel of supporting the protests.

However, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani insisted in the aftermath of Biden’s remarks that the Iranian government would not be swayed by Western rhetoric.

“Iran is too strong for its will to be swayed by the interference … of a politician tired of years of failure,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani wrote on Instagram on Sunday, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. “We will together defend the independence of Iran.”

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters.