Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the powerful Guardians Council, told worshippers in Tehran that having nuclear energy was Irans red line. They should know that we will not cross this line.
However much you threaten us, we will not cross this line. You should know that your threats are beneficial for us, the ayatollah, who is a close confidant of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said.
Brushing off threats of United Nations Security Council action, Jannati said, The Security Council makes a mess of security and is against security. You have put this scarecrow and say that you will send us to the Security Council.
If our enemies come to their senses we will pass this issue. But if they act crazily then they will suffer more than us, he added.
The radical Shiite clerics defiant speech was mainly directed at Western leaders.
The age of Islam and Islamism has arrived. Wherever you hold free elections, despite the huge money you spend, Islamists will win, as you saw in Palestine and Iraq, he said.
You are hated by the world. You insult our Prophet, for whom people sacrifice their lives. You have trampled on everything. So what makes you think that you can survive? he added, referring to the controversy over caricatures depicting the Prophet of Islam.
You are liars, torturers and alcoholics, Jannati told Western leaders.
You legalised homosexuality. You should be ashamed of this promiscuity, he said.
The criminal America is heading for the abyss. With their own hands and ours, they are destroying their own houses.
I dont know why their ears are deaf. When the Iranian people express their inalienable right to nuclear energy, how is that they dont understand this message and their press is not willing to publish this message, Jannati said.
