Seyed Marandi discusses Iran-Oman negotiations, Strait of Hormuz tensions, and the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan defence pact
Glenn Diesen interviews Seyed Marandi, professor at Tehran University and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team.
Summary
Seyed Marandi, professor at Tehran University and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team, joins Glenn Diesen to analyse rapidly developing geopolitical events in West Asia. He argues that the United States is in a fundamentally weakened position following its failed military campaign against Iran, and that Iran is now pursuing a strategy of maximum pressure — targeting UAE tankers both inside and outside the Strait of Hormuz and coordinating with Yemen's forces in the Red Sea — to force Washington back to the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). He reveals that the Iran-Oman deal on the Strait of Hormuz is effectively complete but is being deliberately withheld by Iran pending US compliance with the broader MOU framework. Marandi also dismisses the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan defence pact as largely symbolic, arguing it will do little to alter the military balance in the region — noting that Pakistan's motivation is financial, Saudi Arabia's is economic vulnerability, and Turkey's is military sales. Throughout, the guest frames Iran's position as one of strategic patience backed by demonstrated military capability, while characterising the United States as trapped by domestic political dysfunction, the influence of the Israeli lobby, and the mythology of American exceptionalism. He also argues at length that the moral bankruptcy of Western political elites — exposed by their support for the Gaza genocide — is driving political instability within both US parties and eroding the credibility of US proxies across the region.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and the Strait of Hormuz attacks
Glenn Diesen: Seyed Marandi joins us today — a professor from Tehran University and a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team. Thank you for taking the time on a Sunday morning to speak with me.
Seyed Marandi: It's always a pleasure, Glenn. Thank you very much for inviting me.
Glenn Diesen: We've seen a lot of things happen over the past 24-plus hours. First, Iran attacked a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, which caused a lot of outrage, especially from the UAE. We also see reports of the Iranians being more vocal on their demands against the United States — that is, that the US should pay compensation for what they have destroyed and remove the blockade on Iran. Beyond this, of course, we have all these other diplomatic developments as well: the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan defence pact, the Oman-Iran deal, the US-Saudi nuclear deal — not finalised, but in progress. What do you make of all these developments? Things appear to be moving fast. We can start with the new attacks in the Strait of Hormuz. How can we understand what is happening now?
Seyed Marandi: It's just another normal day in West Asia. The situation is, unlike what the Americans want to believe, not good for the United States at all. The Iranians are now showing that they're not going to allow oil — or any of their goods — to be exported from the Persian Gulf region without Iran's consent. They've had a specific project, it seems to me, of targeting UAE ships. They've struck at least a number of UAE tankers over the past few days. And remember, a while back, Trump made that Truth Social threat where every time Iran strikes a ship, they'll destroy some Iranian critical infrastructure — a bridge or a power plant. But Iran has been striking these tankers since then and blocking any sort of exports from the Emirates, including from outside the Strait of Hormuz.
We can see the same situation in the Red Sea. Yemen's armed forces are blocking Saudi ships. This morning there was another strike on the Jazan refinery. The pressure is continuing, and as time goes by the global energy crisis is getting worse. The Iranians know exactly what's going on, and it's not just the leaders. I rarely go on Iranian TV, but last night I went on and began explaining my views on the region. I started to speak about Japan, and as soon as I said a couple of words, the host interacted with me — it was clear he knew exactly what was going on and understood the threat to the bond market in the United States. This is how closely events in the United States and the West are being followed. People know exactly what's going on. A lot of people know as much as I do, if not more. They know about the midterm elections. They know what's going on in the Democratic Party. They know what's going on in the Republican Party. They know what Tucker Carlson and his political allies are doing. This shows how carefully the situation is being monitored politically.
I think Iran's military and political actions are carried out with an eye on what's going on in the United States — both internally and internationally. The Emirates are very upset, but there's nothing they can do about it. And there's nothing the United States can do about it. The Saudis are very upset because now they are in the same boat as Qatar, the Emirates, and Kuwait. They can't export much from the Red Sea. They can't export from the Persian Gulf. And these are countries that consume a lot. They are not like Iran, which has lived under maximum pressure and sanctions for decades. The consumer in Saudi Arabia is used to spending like there's no tomorrow, and that's true across the Persian Gulf region.
That is going to have an added impact in the sense that not only are Trump's hopes of bringing in trillions of dollars from the Gulf family regimes for the US economy dashed — it's going to be the opposite. These countries are going to have to withdraw money from the United States. They're going to have to sell bonds in the US market in order to sustain their economies, to repair the damage that has been done and the ongoing damage that is being caused. And the costs are enormous, especially for these societies which are extremely wasteful and need huge quantities of money just to sustain themselves.
From the way I see it, the Iranians are playing a waiting game. They're going to put as much pressure on the other side as possible, try to tolerate the pain inflicted on Iran as much as possible, and outweigh the United States. Based on past experiences since the war began, they have every right to be optimistic. The 39 or 40-day war — I never quite figured out how long it was — was a massive failure for the United States. Not a single Iranian underground base was destroyed. Not a single underground Iranian base was damaged throughout the country. Some of those bases were never used and are still not being used, but it just shows how capable the Iranian armed forces are today. The Iranians have been fighting a war for the 21st century against Americans who are fighting a 20th century war.
US bases, Israeli assets, assets of the regimes in the region that were assisting the United States — all of them were out in the open — while all key Iranian assets were deep underground: the factories, the missile bases, the drone bases, the bases that hold Iranian naval speedboats, the bases that protect Iran's air force, the bases that protect Iran's air defence systems, command and control bases, and bases alongside the Persian Gulf that were created in case the United States carries out a land invasion. All of these are protected while Iran goes one by one and destroys US assets on the ground.
I think it's quite clear why the Iranians would have that patience. And then you see the siege warfare. The United States tried to strangle Iran. Ultimately it was the United States that had to agree to the MOU. And now we saw the statement by the chair of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council reinforcing the MOU — but it's sort of an MOU-plus. These are not new demands. Some people seem to think these are new demands or excessive demands. No, they're maximalising the MOU. As I've said to you on a number of occasions, for example, in Article One when it speaks of Lebanon, it also speaks of the other fronts. It doesn't name them, but in this statement they are named: Palestine, Yemen, Iraq — these wars must come to an end. And of course it means both Gaza and the West Bank. So the Iranian demands are not new demands, but they are saying: we are not going to compromise on anything when it comes to compensation. The Iranians demand full compensation — that is in the MOU. But the stress being put on these issues now is basically to send a message to the United States that not only are we not going to compromise on the MOU, we are going to maximalise our demands within the framework of the MOU.
US strategic decline and the lessons of the Gulf War
Glenn Diesen: I always think that the US lost something quite important in the war against Iran — that is, during the post-Cold War era of US hegemony, the main perception of the United States, rooted in facts I would say, was that it was all-powerful. That perception kept all countries at bay, and this was a huge resource for the US. But now with every attack on Iran, you see the weapon stockpile driven down, which means whoever is the opponent of the US would have better cards to play. And the deterrence — in the past, as Trump always screams out on Twitter, if anyone dares to attack the US, we're going to blow up your country and destroy your civilisation tomorrow if you dare to retaliate. But again, this pushback from Iran. We now see that there's not much the US can do, really, short of nuking Iran. It is interesting what they gambled on in this war. It's not just the Strait of Hormuz — it's regional partnerships. But it does seem that the economy is a key issue. I'm wondering what the economic ripple effects would be from this, because in July we see that the crude oil exported by Saudi Arabia to the US dropped to zero, we're told. It's hard to calculate the kind of economic and political repercussions this will have.
Seyed Marandi: Saudi Arabia will be destabilised. Energy is, as far as money inflow goes, but also where it invests money into the US — the US needs this as well. The tech industry, which the US is in the AI race with the Chinese on, needs that funding. The petrodollar system — everything comes under a massive squeeze. I think in the future this will be a key theme for academics: to see exactly what the US gambled and lost on in this war.
The Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan defence pact
Glenn Diesen: I did want to ask about this new defence pact, because we see Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan all forming this defence pact. All of them are more or less surrounding Iran. That being said, they have very different interests and very different motivations. I was wondering to what extent Iran is a target or the reasoning behind this, and to what extent should the Iranians worry, or how might they react?
Seyed Marandi: Just a couple of points first. A couple of years ago, in one of our first discussions, I said that I always believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the victory of the United States over Saddam Hussein in Kuwait was the worst thing that could happen to the United States — because it created an arrogance that basically led to the swift collapse of the US empire. The ghosts of Vietnam were swept away after Iraq. It was the unipolar moment. And then came the invasion of Iraq, 9/11 — and when we look at the evidence being put forth by the likes of Tucker Carlson, it's obviously not just al-Qaeda and those 19 people who were involved. It doesn't look like that at all. It looks like it was much broader, and that agencies linked to the West or Western agencies were also involved.
But in any case, since then the United States has been rapidly declining, and this war is the exact opposite of what we saw in Kuwait. In Kuwait there was a stunning victory. Now, just over three decades later, we see the exact opposite — the United States fought a war and it failed. In fact, the 39 or 40 days of fighting is similar to the time it took to defeat Saddam Hussein in Kuwait — I think that was 43 days or so, maybe I'm mistaken. But that actually turned out to be horrible for the United States, because the United States changed. It became aggressive, extremely aggressive, and that destroyed it.
A lot of that destruction again has to do with Iran. When the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran began to work with the resistance in Afghanistan. Iran began to work with the Taliban. The first generation of the Taliban was horrible — they were carrying out mass murder and slaughter. But after they collapsed in Afghanistan, the second generation became more moderate. We still have big differences over education, women's education, and women's rights — that's a big divide. But the relationship has evolved tremendously. Iran supported the Taliban to weaken the US occupation. And ironically it has angered many among the minorities — the Shia, the Tajiks, the Persian language speakers, the Uzbeks — who are all opposed to the Taliban. But for Iran, the priority was to expel the empire from the region. The Iranians believe that if the empire is expelled, the situation in Afghanistan will calm down, because there's no foreign manipulator to turn community against community, one nation against another.
The same was true in Syria. The Iranians supported the Syrian government to oppose the US project and the Israeli project, which sadly regional regimes participated in. The same model took place in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Iran pushed back — it was General Soleimani behind both — and that led the United States to leave, having spent trillions of dollars. So to a large degree, US failure against Iran in this war is linked to the US failure in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They had to move away from Iranian borders. They spent trillions of dollars, became much weaker. The American people became much more sceptical about these forever wars. And so if it wasn't for Iran supporting the resistance against the empire in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, in Lebanon, and elsewhere in Yemen, then today it would have been a very different situation. The Americans would have been able to come forward with much greater strength.
And I would add — I'm not saying that Iran foresaw all of this — but Iran's support for Russia during the war, because Iran saw the expansion of NATO as a threat to itself as well. It was not just about Ukraine. It was also about Georgia, and then of course Armenia and Azerbaijan would be next. We already had Turkey as a NATO member, and these additions would have made the threat even greater for Iran. So Iran's support for the Russians during the war also helped destroy a lot of the assets that NATO gave to Ukraine and weakened NATO economically and militarily. Many of those air defence systems that were used in Ukraine — that benefited Iran. And of course, right now the war in West Asia helps Russia. When the United States is forced to spend money on multiple fronts and waste its assets in multiple fronts, it benefits Iran and Russia.
But with regards to the three leaders gathering in Saudi Arabia — the Turkish leader, the Pakistani leader, and Muhammad bin Salman — I think it's pretty clear that this is about Yemen. It's about the weakening position of Saudi Arabia. These countries did not gather over Gaza. They didn't gather over Lebanon. They didn't gather over the Israeli advancements in Syria. They didn't gather over the horrific situation taking place in the West Bank. It is about Saudi Arabia being severely weakened because of its own policies. The Saudis helped the United States attack Iran. They co-conspired with the Americans against the Iranian people. They acted as a US air base country. Not only did they provide airspace, they provided air bases. Not only did they provide air bases, they provided jet fuel, they provided everything the Americans needed. They paid for the US war as well. All of the expenditures of the United States in Saudi Arabia during this period were paid for by the Saudis, and Qatar and the Emirates as well — they paid for the US presence, and that's true about Kuwait. The expenditures on these bases were paid for by these governments, so much so that some of them were facing financial difficulty as a result.
So Saudi Arabia helped the United States against Iran. They were part of the war. And then they went and provoked Yemen. They bombed Yemen at a time when they had imposed a siege — the siege on Yemen had been going on for years — and then they bombed Iraq, falsely blaming Iraq for drone strikes which were carried out by Yemen. And Yemen again today has carried out further drone strikes. So for Saudi Arabia it was basically nothing more — they tried to give it a different spin, but that's what it was.
But I don't think it really matters too much for the Iranians. Just today we saw a Yemen strike on the Jazan refinery again, and they will continue to do so. I don't see these countries getting involved against Yemen. It doesn't look good for them at all. People will remember that for years the Saudis, with the support of Turkey and other countries in the region, carried out a genocidal war against Yemen and failed. They imposed starvation — it was like Gaza. The Saudis and Qatar were supporting it until the siege on Qatar, after which Qatar and Turkey tilted away from Saudi Arabia. But they were supporting it, and they failed. And Yemen today is much stronger than it was back then, while Saudi Arabia is much weaker than it was back then.
So I don't really see them having the capabilities to stop Yemen from striking Saudi ships or Saudi refineries or oil installations. They don't have anything that the United States didn't have. And so many of those munitions are depleted now — those anti-missile, anti-drone munitions that the United States has been bragging about. We're all hearing the news about the current shortages. And Yemen has a history of wrecking the ambitions of other countries. Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s invaded Yemen and it was their Vietnam — and that's part of the reason why they failed so badly against the Israeli regime, because they had expended so much of their capabilities in Yemen.
So I don't see this agreement as signifying much. Pakistan had this arrangement with Saudi Arabia more or less before. There are financial issues that lie behind this for Pakistan, military sales for Turkey. They may try to do some things with Saudi Arabia — I'm not saying it's just a piece of paper that's been signed — but I don't think it's going to have any major impact on Yemen's capabilities or the capabilities of the resistance in Iraq. And of course, Iran defeated the combined forces of the United States and the Israeli regime. So I don't think Iran is worried about any piece of paper signed in Saudi Arabia.
The Iran-Oman deal and the MOU framework
Glenn Diesen: I was just thinking about your comments on hegemony — that is, why the collapse of the Soviet Union was also problematic for the US. People like Stephen Walt wrote a lot about this: if you're a hegemon and there's no balance, the greatest challenge for the US is that states don't constrain themselves, that the US would no longer be balanced, it would go out in every direction and exhaust itself and make a lot of enemies. This was the argument in the 1990s. You can see why: if you're a hegemon unconstrained, you can do anything and you can absorb the cost of this military adventurism. So essentially this is a perfect condition for the rise of the hawks — why shouldn't we have military solutions for everything? Who can stop us? And that's what you saw already from the 1990s onwards. But then you're going to see predictable developments: decline of diplomacy, decline of fiscal discipline, the moral compass will be thrown out, there will be a collapse in the trust of the political class, you will exhaust yourself economically, you will have political instability, and eventually the rising rivals at the periphery will begin to get closer together — the Chinese, Russians, Iranians — because they realise this is not a functioning international system. And once the hegemon begins to decline, it will be desperate to hold on to power, and that's when you will see extremely foolish policies: the war on Iran, the war on Russia, the economic war on China. A lot of this would be predictable. Of course, if you argue that the best thing in the US interest now is to accommodate a multipolar system where it can retrench, you're often met with arguments: "Oh, that's anti-American. You want to give more space to the Chinese and the Russians." In my opinion, this is the medicine the US needs to restore itself and go back to normality, but it's a very difficult argument to make in this day and age when everything is emotional sloganeering.
Anyway, I take your point on the Turkey-Saudi-Pakistan defence pact — we shouldn't expect collective defence right away. But we also hear now that the deal between Oman and Iran might be in its final stages. I'm not sure whether to take these media reports with a grain of salt, but I do hear that from other places as well. How significant would this be? And what would such a deal actually include?
Seyed Marandi: Just a couple of points first. With regards to the United States, I agree with what you said completely. And even now, as all the indicators show that things are not going well at all, you still see that the myth of American exceptionalism still exists. You don't see any change in US policy, which of course is linked to corruption — the money going to the military-industrial complex, and their lack of any ability to reform because they're making huge amounts of money. The leadership is increasingly corrupt, manipulating the markets and then benefiting from it directly — their families, their allies, all of that is true. But the myth still exists. They still behave as if nothing will actually run out, as if they can win somehow, they will come out on top. That continues to push the United States towards the cliff, whether it's economic, political, or military. And I think by the time they really figure it out — even though they're seeing it, they have the evidence in front of them — it'll be too late. I think we're pretty close to that moment.
But others know this. Others are looking objectively. The Iranians are calculating very carefully. The Russians are calculating carefully. The Chinese, everyone is calculating very carefully. And the US allies — I think they are beginning to recognise that they're in a very dangerous situation. These proxies have no popular support. They don't have any mandate from their people to be US proxies, and that undermines their own authority. Because when that aura of power is gone, it is also gone for the proxies. And so even this alliance, whatever it is, is not going to look good when it does nothing for Gaza, does nothing for the West Bank, does nothing for Lebanon, does nothing for Syria.
But let's say they collaborate against Yemen. People will say: well, Yemen was the country that the United States went to war against because it blocked the Red Sea to the Israeli regime over Gaza. So these countries — Turkey, which transports oil to Netanyahu's regime, and the others — will be seen as fighting against the supporters of the Palestinian people. That image will not be good. You will see people online from these countries defending these policies — basically elites that are close to the Saudis or close to the governments — but people who are looking at the reality on the ground, about who's defending Palestine, it's the axis of resistance. No one else. They see through that.
So it's going to be very difficult for the Americans in the months ahead because of all those indicators you alluded to. It's going to be difficult for US proxies to pursue the same policies, especially since the American power that they relied on is melting away. And the public, which has not been satisfied with many things over the past few years, will be raising more questions and will probably become more feared by these governments. The governments will become more fearful of an angry population that wants to see the genocide in Gaza come to an end.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are simply reiterating their position on Gaza. The Iranian chair of the Supreme National Security Council in his statement yesterday was very explicit — and something which I've said repeatedly — that Palestine has to be a part of the MOU. It is a part of the MOU for Iran. Not just Gaza, but also the West Bank, because Iran didn't name Gaza. It said Palestine. So none of this bodes well for the United States or its allies.
Getting to your question on Iran and Oman: the negotiations between Iran and Oman, from my understanding, are almost complete. One can probably say they've been completed, but I think since the issue of the Strait of Hormuz is linked to the broader issue of the MOU, that is why the Iranians are holding back. Now, the Iranians never believed that the United States had any intention of implementing the MOU. Iran is not naive. But there are a number of reasons why Iran went for the MOU in the first place.
One was that the Iranians wanted to export oil. Iran was under siege, so it had accumulated a lot of oil in tankers — tens of millions of barrels. As soon as the MOU was signed, Iran exported that oil to the Asian markets to strengthen its position for the months ahead. But also Iran wanted its allies and friends across the world to know that Iran is seeking an agreement. It's not as if Iran wants forever war, unlike the United States. Iran wants to bring it to an end. So this is a message to its friends — both regional friends and global friends — that there is an end in sight if the Americans have the will to move in that direction.
And the Iranians, knowing that the United States would undermine the deal, had prepared themselves. We saw that in the war that resumed after the United States violated the deal and set up that corridor in the Strait of Hormuz — a violation of Article 5. When the United States resumed the war, Iran performed even better than in the 40-day war. We saw that the Iranian missiles and drones were hitting very hard. And then we saw Yemen enter the war as well, because of the stupidity of the Saudis in attacking Sana'a International Airport. So it made things much worse for the United States.
So now the Iranians are holding this back. They're holding this agreement — where there will be fees, by the way, contrary to what Vice President Vance claimed — until the issue of the MOU is resolved. Because Iran is saying that the United States has to go back to the MOU and fulfil it in the way which Iran interprets it. Thus the Iranians were more explicit in the statement yesterday. The deal is ready for signing from my understanding. There's no disagreement or anything like that holding it back. But the Iranians are waiting to see which direction the United States is going to go. Is it going to resume fighting? Because that's not an impossibility, Glenn. You and I both know that Trump is under enormous pressure from the Israeli regime, the Zionist lobby, his own ego, the Israeli influencers in the United States. He's under pressure to continue the war. This is the sort of narrative we continue to see on Fox News, for example. And we know that's where he gets his intelligence briefings — by watching Fox News. So it's not impossible. No one should count this out. The Iranians are preparing for war, and Iran's allies are preparing for war — in Iraq they're preparing, in Yemen they're preparing.
But the other scenario is for the Americans to decide: we have to end this. The situation with Japan is getting dangerous. The shortage of oil is intensifying at a very rapid pace, more rapid than before, because of the Red Sea and because Iran is not allowing the Emirates to export either. The pressure is on. But at the end of the day, the decision is made in the White House — which direction things move in.
Glenn Diesen: It is quite significant, as you say, that the Oman-Iran deal is close to signing. This will more or less find a solution to the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, and I'm assuming that Oman is in close coordination with the US and others, trying to accommodate their interests as well. So it could be interpreted as a wider agreement which solves this issue. But as you said, it's not the only problem. It's not as if the war comes to an end with the signing, because with the MOU the United States has other obligations. As you said, they haven't fulfilled them — ending the blockade, I guess this could be done without too many problems; ending the fighting in Lebanon, more problematic; the reparations, I don't see that happening easily either. But maybe in the way the language is framed, it can take on some format — I'm not sure if there's a compromise in terms of how this is made over time.
Seyed Marandi: There are ways to do this. These countries in the Persian Gulf region have lots of money in US markets and in the West, and they were with the United States in this war. But the MOU was devised in a way in which, for example, the money that would come into Iran would effectively be a violation of US law, or at least a violation of presidential decrees or decisions made by the US government with regards to investment in Iran. The models that the Iranians have been devising are models that are doable, but they also break the sanctions regime. So it doesn't have to come directly from the United States.
Of course there are things that the United States will have to do, and first and foremost for the Iranians is handing Lebanese territory back to the people of Lebanon, forcing the Israeli regime to back off in Gaza and the West Bank. These are key demands by Iran. This is not going to be over until there is peace in West Asia. And of course Iran's assets that were stolen have to be returned, and the other issues which were discussed. But there are models in which these things can be carried out without, you know, the United States sending money from bank accounts in Washington to bank accounts in Tehran. There are other ways of doing this.
Trump's domestic political constraints and the nuclear deal question
Glenn Diesen: I'm just thinking about US domestic politics, though. Even if they do recognise that all their paths to a potential victory have been exhausted and they have to put an end to this, Trump has spent more than a decade saying how weak Obama was for unfreezing some Iranian assets. Also, the JCPOA was such a horrible deal. So the fact that he will now have to release Iranian funds and accept a deal which at best wouldn't be any different from the JCPOA — it's going to be a very hard sell in Washington. It's not clear if we will ever get there. But Iran is not going to compromise. So the decision is theirs. It can be resolved within weeks, it can be resolved within months, but it can also remain unresolved. The Iranian position today, I think, is very different from what it was before, and it would be a further loss to the United States.
Seyed Marandi: It's not as if the Iranians are expecting Trump to capitulate tomorrow and carry out its obligations within the framework of the MOU based on the Iranian interpretation. But it does show the Iranian determination to make sure that the United States is defeated, and that its allies in the region — in Gaza, in Palestine, the people of Palestine, the West Bank, and elsewhere — feel the benefits of this US-Israeli defeat. Because at the end of the day, the defeat of the United States is a defeat for the Israeli regime.
And the battle over the Strait of Hormuz was more important than any other battle that took place in West Asia during this period. Some would ask: why didn't Iran strike the Israeli regime during these 13 days? Well, the Iranians were focused on winning the Strait of Hormuz. A defeat for the United States is a defeat for the Israeli regime. Of course, during this period, Iran was destroying all those radar and defence installations that were built in the Persian Gulf, in Saudi Arabia, in Jordan, and in northern Iraq to protect the Israeli regime. They destroyed that so that if there's war, the Iranians can use their drones and missiles more easily. And also the Iranians want to see what happens in Palestine before the elections. Not that Netanyahu's opponents are any less genocidal, but this deep divide in Israel is a good thing for the region.
But ultimately the battle for the Strait of Hormuz was the decisive battle. That was what basically changed the direction of the region and changed the future of the world. And what Yemen did was it strengthened what happened in the Strait of Hormuz. It made the Strait of Hormuz even more important, because if Yemen had carried out these operations under normal circumstances it would have bothered the Saudis and caused them significant damage, but it wouldn't have critically punished the Saudis or the Americans or the West. But now when you look at what's happening in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait alongside what's happened in the Strait of Hormuz, it becomes all the more effective.
No one in Iran is naive about the days and weeks and months ahead. But they're sending a very strong message to Washington: we won this war. Don't be under any illusion that you are going to be able to chip away at Iran's gains and the gains of the axis of resistance at the negotiating table, or undermine them by cheating in implementing the MOU.
Glenn Diesen: I think that's another problem for Trump, because he's been selling victories — essentially using as indicators of victory: look how many people we killed, or how much military or civilian infrastructure we were able to destroy. But these are not indicators of victory. As you said, this is a very complex conflict, and there are definitely better indicators of success here than killing opponents.
Seyed Marandi: Probably the worst is not just the fact that the United States is continuing to support a genocide, but the fact that the United States is constantly threatening the Iranians with a holocaust. Not only has the United States failed militarily, but the United States and the West — western elites — have been exposed morally. And that's why people in the West are turning against the political establishment, especially in the United States. We're seeing that play itself out in the civil war on the right and the civil war in the Democratic Party — I don't know if you can call it the left, but in any case, that civil war is because of not just economic issues but the moral bankruptcy of western political elites. People across the world see it.
And of course the myth of US power is broken. People see that every day the United States is saying we destroyed this, we destroyed that, but every day the Iranians are firing missiles. Obviously they're not destroying all those things they claim to have destroyed. And it seems that even if the United States did not have the shortages we're hearing about today, it would still lose. Because during the 40-day war, there was no talk of those shortages. Those shortages existed, and the Iranians were depleting US capabilities even beforehand. True Promise One — when Iran sent those missiles and drones — they spent huge quantities. Then True Promise Two. All of these contributed to what we're seeing today. But even if those shortages didn't exist, even then they failed. They lost the war. They were using those missiles during the 39 or 40 days of war like there's no tomorrow. And ultimately Trump, who demanded unconditional surrender, was forced to accept the Iranian ten-point peace plan for the war to end after 39 or 40 days. So the myth of American power has collapsed. And of course the myth of the US economy being the powerhouse of the world has failed too. What's going on in Japan is just one indicator of that.
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, it's a big mess. And of course the one thing Trump could do to sell this as a victory is if he could get a nuclear deal — another JCPOA — because then he can claim: we inflicted so much pain on them that they had to sign this deal, and now they won't get nuclear weapons. He can sell the story that way. But even on this issue, from what I understand, the Iranians don't want the US to cherry-pick what they want out of the MOU. So the nuclear deal has to come at the end, which means that first the Americans will have to deal with the issues of ending sanctions, unfreezing Iranian assets, paying reparations, ending the blockade, and the war on Lebanon. So we're not close to the end of the war just yet. And of course the Saudi deal Trump might be making now — the nuclear deal — I guess that could also throw another wrench into the system. It's hard to imagine this not impacting Iran's position on a nuclear deal. If there's one set of rules for the Saudis and one for the Iranians, and as the White House explains: well, that's because the Saudis are an ally. This is apparently how the international system should work now.
Seyed Marandi: But even there, Trump humiliated Muhammad bin Salman. Not only did he a while back say he can kiss him in his backside, but then after all the negotiations and the deal was agreed upon, Trump comes out and says: but first they have to accept Israel. The humiliation rituals are just extraordinary. The way in which the United States treats its friends and supposed friends, its proxies — it's unbelievable. And this contributes to their weakness. So Saudi Arabia, which has to — in order to get a nuclear program — I mean, Iran offered Saudi Arabia the technology for nuclear enrichment. It's been offering it for many, many years. People can check online. Iran has been saying this: if they want the technology, we'll give it to them. But the Saudis refrain from doing so. They refrain from getting it from China or from Russia. They simply sit there and wait to see if the Americans will give it to them. And when the Americans finally agree to give it to them with many restrictions, then they say: oh, but you have to first bend the knee to Netanyahu. And this does not strengthen the foundations of the ruling family.
Glenn Diesen: Well, as a European, I'm all too familiar with how the US humiliates its satellite states. So anyway, thank you again for taking the time on a Sunday morning to speak with us. Thanks again.
Seyed Marandi: It's a great pleasure, Glenn. Thank you very much for inviting me.