Guest: Sayed Mohammad Marandi. Interviewer: Joe Lauria
For two weeks, Iran has been under relentless bombardment from the U.S. and Israel in a barbaric war of aggression rooted in a profound ignorance of the country they seek to conquer. Iran was no threat to the U.S. It was in negotiations with the U.S. for a nuclear deal when Tel Aviv and Washington attacked.
Now Trump says “we won,” Netanyahu says regime change is up to the Iranian people, not Tel Aviv; U.S. bases in the region are damaged and Israel and the U.S. are running low on interceptors. Are they ready to declare a false victory and try to walk away — if Iran lets them?
We saw scenes, scenes of tremendous courage and defiance from ordinary people and the president and the foreign minister on the streets of Tehran al-Quds Day on Friday, courage and defiance in the literal face of Israel-American bombing that would perhaps be seen nowhere else. It seems to be a demonstration of just how wrong the Americans and Israelis are about the Iranian people and their leaders.
About this ignorance of Iran. First they seemed to think they were playing chess – kill the king and you won. They thought that killing the supreme leader would bring down the system. The opposite happened.
1. The U.S. has a lack of self-awareness, e.g. they don’t know they are an empire or the aggressor. You are a professor of Orientalism so what about the ignorance and arrogance of the Orientalist conception of Iran in Washington and Tel Aviv?
2. Saddam’s soldiers didn’t fight in 2003, Compare Iran’s willingness to fight?
3. Misrepresentation of Iranian militia defending Lebanon from Israel (Hezbollah) Iraq from the U.S. (militia) Houthi from KSA, Hamas from Israel. Terrorists are from Gulf States. As a youth in Virginia did you already understand this misrepresentation of Iran in the U.S.?
4. Do you relish sparring with the likes of Piers Morgan and that Sky News reporter?
5. Do you think Iran is to the U.S. Empire what Carthage was to the Roman empire – an irrational need to destroy a defiant state, even though unlike Carthage which invaded Italy? Iran has never attacked the United States mainland. Are Lindsey Graham and John McCain like Cato the Elder?
6. The U.S. knew what would happen if there was a full scale war against Iran – exactly what we are seeing: Straits closed, U.S. bases and Israel attacked. Every U.S. president stopped short until Trump. Why?
7. The nuclear deal was working. Miriam Adelson got Trump to rip it up in the first term. Why didn’t Joe Biden revive the JPCOA?
8. Trita Parsi is critical of the U.S. and Israel war but he says the religious “regime” is deeply unpopular in Iran. But with whom? A minority of Liberal pro-Western Intelligentsia that are anti-government as opposed to the vast general public?
9. Are you afraid that unable to overthrow the government that the U.S. and Israel are turning to total war, to just destroy as much of the country and kill as many civilians as they can in the hope of bringing Iran to its knees?
10. Is a U.S. ground war likely or possible, from the Caspian out of Azerbaijan? Would Azeris in Iran join them? The Kurds seemed to rise up.
11. We see signs of a Gulf Arab revolt against the U.S., which didn’t hold up its end of the arms for oil in dollars deal? Will they ask for the U.S. bases, which are a liability, to leave? Will the Gulf Arabs understand after this that the Israelis and Americans are the real threat through their hegemonic projects and that they should align with Iran instead against the U.S.?
12. This is a bigger battle than just U.S.-Israel vs. Iran. This is the uni-power U.S. against the multilateral BRICS. Iran is on the front line. Is this an historic battle that could determine the future of the regional Israeli and global U.S. empires, the Greater Israeli and Greater American projects if you will?
13. Did Iran know in advance that its BRICS partners Russia and China would not veto the egregious Security Council resolution last week that blamed Iran, incredibly, for an “unprovoked” attack on their neighbors who host U.S. bases and who were involved in the aggression against Iran?
14. Trump said “We won” past tense; Netanyahu said it’s up to the people of Iran now to bring down the system, don’t blame us if it doesn’t happen. It sounds like they are both ready to declare a false victory and try to walk away — especially if they run out of interceptors before Iran runs out of offensive missiles — if Iran lets them walk away?
Iran is in the driver’s seat. What would be Iran’s demands to agree to end the war? Would Iran go in for the kill to avenge Iranian and Palestinian blood? What if Israel threatens to use its nuclear weapons if it sees it’s going down?
15. At this point Israel and the U.S. should be learning a lesson not to try this again? Would the new Supreme Leader lift his father’s fatwa and allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons to stave off any possibility that they haven’t learned anything?
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