‘Death to America’ is more diplomatic than you think, says Iran’s supreme leader

When the Iran nuclear deal was debated in Washington, the popular Iranian chant ‘Death to America!’ was a regular point of contention. According to the New Yorker, on one occasion the Texan republican Ted Poe asked John Kerry if the slogan meant that Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wanted to destroy the United States:

‘I don’t believe they’ve said that,’ the Secretary of State replied. ‘I think they’ve said ‘Death to America’ in their chants.’

‘Well, I kind of take that to mean that they want us dead,’ Poe quipped.

So happily today, Khamenei has stepped in to clarify just what is meant by the now infamous chant, which first arose in 1979 at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution. Discussing the slogan as Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani attempts to improve the country’s relations with America, Khamenei says that ‘Death to America’ doesn’t actually mean death to American people. Instead it simply means ‘death to U.S.