This Freudian slip by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei effectively summarizes the past 45 years.
For background, understandably, after Western powers backed Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the 1980-88 war, Iran grew paranoid & realized it needed to take the battle line abroad, instead of sitting back, vulnerable to conventional & chemical weapons (which Saddam used with the blessing of the West).
For 4+ decades, Iran spent tens of billions of dollars on its "Axis of Resistance," though suggesting that it did not actively decide which proxy group did what. 
When one of its "startup projects," Hamas attacked Israel on 10/7, the Palestinian resistance group effectively gave the IDF carte blanche to strike back.
After all, inasmuch as Palestinians claimed that 10/7 was not an isolated event but a response to decades of occupation, well, since 10/7 the IDF was by that logic allowed to respond in kind.
What did Israel do?
- It levelled Gaza in its quest for Israeli hostages, decimating Hamas, with its sights now on permanently occupying Gaza,
- It decapitated Hezbollah's leadership & destroyed southern Lebanon,
- It coalesced Israeli population around Bibi Netanyahu who may have previously been forced by the left to be more dovish in posturing
- The two-state solution - a swiss cheese construct to begin with - is unlikely to see the light of day any time soon, if ever (even the Palestinians do not view that as viable,
- It assassinated Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran no less,
- It assassinated Hezbollah's charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah in a bunker in Lebanon, and to leave little to the imagination, proceeded to kill every successive appointed leader
- It eventually found Hamas' military chief Yinwar Sinwar who (at least to his credit wasn't hiding in Qatar, but fighting in Gaza)
- Combined with Iran's own vulnerability following IDF's neutralizing of Iran's defence systems & Russia's protracted adventures in Ukraine, Syria's Bashar Al Assad fled, collapsing the Baath regime that ruled Syria with an iron fist for nearly half a century,
- Within 18 months, it evaporated Iran's investment in the so-called Axis of Resistance.
As I wrote earlier this week, any tangible or intangible ROI Iran could claim on its investments were effectively written off. Hey, as an investor myself in startups, it happens. It's part of the racket.On the show Mad Men, Jon Hamm's character Don Draper famously once said "if you don't like the conversation, change it." 
Well, indeed, when I heard the Ayatollah ask "how much has America spent in these 40+ years to free Iran from the 'claws' of the Islamic Republic," that meant that the cunning Supreme Leader was changing the discussion from Iran's abysmal failure in the Levant to emphasize America's own anemic record in & around Iran. 
To be fair, both the first global empire Iran & the modern day super power America have little to show for their foreign escapades (invest in your own people, folks!)
But what is even more surprising is his use of the term "chang," which means claw (could also mean clutch). That Freudian slip implies that the Mullahs who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution have done so by force, and not necessarily the popular movement the revolution claimed to be.
Since ruling the then known world until the 4th century BC, the oldest nation in history has sadly seen Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Russians, British, Americans, and now the Islamic Republic's claws into it. 
Considering that the ruler who has controlled Iran (be it Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and now Khamenei himself) has always been reaped vast riches, sadly I suppose this should come as no surprise.
Telling, indeed.