MNA � Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaie said that the US government cannot show itself as a defender of democracy and human rights through media propaganda.

He made the remarks on the sidelines of Nov. 4 rallies in Tehran.

The global arrogance is trying to show itself as a defender of democracy and human rights with its many media and propaganda efforts while plundering Syrian oil in the region and despoiling the interests of the Iraqi people, he said.

Wherever Americans are present, their president clearly declares that they are in the region for their own benefit and that the people of the region must pay the costs of US presence, he added.

The presence of Iranian people in the Nov. 4 rallies shows that people have a good understanding of US policies, Kadkhodaie mentioned.

Iranians have taken to the streets across the country to demonstrate their disapproval of US policies on the 40th anniversary of the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran. Top Iranian authorities, along with millions of people, took part in the rallies.

On November 4, 1979, a group of university students took over the US embassy, which they believed had turned into a center of espionage, plotting to overthrow the nascent Islamic Republic, and held 52 American diplomats for 444 days.

Documents found at the political mission corroborated claims by the revolutionary students that Washington had been using the compound to hatch plots against Iran.

Anger toward America had already been growing throughout 1979 as Iran�s revolutionary government took hold, but it boiled over in October when the United States took in the ailing shah for medical treatment.

Many of those sentiments remain today amid the escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington, following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal and subsequent sanctions that have hit ordinary Iranians hard.