US Embassy staff in Tehran in 1979, as they were taken hostage by Ayatollah Khomeini loyalists. Photo: Wikipedia.

On the eve of the 36th anniversary of the takeover of Tehran’s US embassy by radical Iranian students, Iran reiterated its enmity towards the United States, official and semi-official Iranian media outlets reported on Tuesday.

The country’s Mehr News Agency reported that in an address to a group of students on Tuesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the United States the “same old Uncle Tom.”

This was a not-s0-veiled reference to the hero of the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel — whose name has become a derogatory term for a black who helps whites oppress others of his race by being subservient —  and possibly President Barack Obama.

Khamenei attacked his political opponents in Iran, who, he claimed, are attempting to mask the United States’ true nature and advocate rapprochement. He stressed that Iran would never see the US as a friend, because Washington would “grab the opportunity to sting and poison [the] Iranian nation with its venom.”

Khamenei justified the 1979 attack on the embassy — which loyalists of Iran’s revolutionary leader at the time, Ayatollah Khomeini, called a “den of spies” — saying it was active in carrying out “plots against the country,” a clear demonstration that “friendship will never temper Washington’s deep and boiling lust for conspiracy and regime-toppling.”

Khamenei criticized previous Iranian governments for maintaining close ties with the United States, saying the relations exposed the country to “devastating economic and cultural invasions,” which allowed Washington to “[extend] its networks in the rank and file of the government in Iran.”

In response to Khamenei’s comments, the audience began chanting the familiar “Death to America” slogan. Khamenei interjected to say that the insult is not intended as a call for the destruction of the American people, but of American policy and “arrogance.”

In another speech commemorating the anniversary, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) naval commander Admiral Ali Fadavi stressed that Iran’s conflict with the United States will continue, because it is a struggle between justice and falsehood, the country’s Fars News Agency reported.

In Iran, November 4 marks “National Day of Fight Against Global Arrogance,” commemorating the takeover of the US Embassy by the revolutionary Iranian students who belonged to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam [Khomeini’s] Line. Fifty-two of the embassy’s staff members were held hostage for 444 days, enduring abuse and mock executions.