"Regional presence grants us strategic influence and greater national power," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told members of the Assembly of Experts, a body of Iran's most powerful clerics, constitutionally in charge of supervising his performance.
"Why do we have to give up on [such activities]?" Khamenei asked rhetorically. He was addressing criticism both at home and abroad on the Islamic Republic's overseas activities, mainly in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the wider Middle East.
