Iran’s supreme leader has long fulminated against perceived plots by the Americans. More recently he has warned of the dangers of foreign enemy subversions in the era after he is gone. But on Wednesday he suggested that era could be 10 years away, or less.

In a speech to members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps reported by Iranian news media, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 76, said they must be on alert for any political and cultural infiltrations by the United States.

Image Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Wednesday of foreign enemy subversions. Credit... Supreme Leader Office European Pressphoto Agency

Such infiltrations, he said, are more dangerous than any forthcoming economic changes in Iran that arise from the nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers that was completed in July.