War With Iran: Tehran Thanks President Trump For Showing America's 'Real Face'

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mocked the U.S. President Donald Trump’s warnings against conducting missile tests, while adding that the president is showing the “real face” of America and deliberately creating friction between the two countries.

Khameni also called on Iranians to demonstrate against Trumps’ comments to “show others what kind of stance the nation of Iran takes when threatened” on Friday’s anniversary of the 1979 revolution.

"No enemy can paralyze the Iranian nation…[Trump] says 'you should be afraid of me'. No! The Iranian people will respond to his words on Feb 10, (the anniversary of the revolution) and will show their stance against such threats," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his website in a meeting with military commanders in Tehran.

Khamenei also thanked Trump for exposing the apparent hypocrisy of the United States and criticized him for his domestic immigration ban after mocking him for his predecessor Barack Obama's interventions in the middle east. He accused Obama of encouraging hostilities in Iraq and Syria and for the spread of ISIS, in a tweet.

“We actually thank this new President. We thank him because he made it easier for us to reveal the real face of the United States. What we have been saying, for over thirty years, about political, economic, moral, and social corruption within the U.S. ruling establishment, he came out and exposed during the election campaigns and after the elections… Now, with everything he is doing - handcuffing a child as young as five at an airport - he is showing the reality of American human rights.”

Khamenei’s comments were delivered amid escalating tensions between the two countries that reached a crescendo Saturday, when a senior Iranian government official, who held multiple portfolios including a member of Iran’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission said that Iran was prepared to attack Tel Aviv and destroy a U.S. military base in Bahrain if the Trump White House ordered a military strike against Iran.

Mojtaba Zonour, a former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps official, reportedly said Iran could bomb use Iranian missiles to bomb Tel Aviv in under seven minutes.

“ [Tehran would] raze to the ground” a U.S. military base in Bahrain “if the enemy makes a mistake…and only seven minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv,” said Zonour, while speaking during a Revolutionary Guard military exercise involving missile and radar systems held in Semnan province in northern Iran.

Zonour’s comments follow Trump’s orders to impose sanctions against two dozen Iranians for the missile tests conducted a week ago that violates a United Nations Security Council resolution banning missiles that could carry a nuclear device. Although, Iran said the test was not a breach of the 2015 U.N. resolution, Trump’s sanctions affect companies from the Persian Gulf to China.

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly Sunday during the Super Bowl pre-game program, Trump called the pact "the worst deal I’ve ever seen," while detailing his opposition to the Iran deal.

“I think it’s a shame that we had a deal like that, that we had to sign a deal like that. If you’re going to do it, make a good deal … we have nothing to show for it," Trump said.