Few Iranian officials embody the regime’s contempt for facts as brazenly as Aliakbar Velayati. His rhetoric recalls the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini, when mythmaking and paternalistic posturing were presented as historical destiny. Velayati—longtime adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader—does not merely distort reality; he delivers these distortions with the tone of a self‑appointed custodian of the region, a man who believes he can issue certificates of legitimacy to neighboring states.

Months ago, he claimed—without a hint of embarrassment—that Iran had always enjoyed “friendly relations” with the Arab Gulf sheikhdoms, and that Tehran was responsible for “liberating Muscat from Portuguese occupation.” This week he went further, declaring that the stability of Arab states along the Gulf is owed to Iran’s “centuries‑long management” of the Strait of Hormuz. He then dismissed these states as “neighbours and their little politicians,” whose survival, he said, depends on “crumbs falling from this table.”

This is not mere rhetorical insolence. It is the distilled ideology of a political project that treats geography as private property, history as erasable ink, and neighboring nations as minor details in a grand design of regional dominance. Velayati’s falsehoods are not accidental; they are deliberate acts of appropriation. When he claims Iran “liberated” Muscat, he is not offering an alternative reading of history—he is attempting to seize ownership of another nation’s memory.

When he speaks of the Strait of Hormuz as if it were a Revolutionary Guard checkpoint, he is not describing reality—he is asserting guardianship over an international waterway.

When he speaks of the........

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