Glenn Diesen interviews Seyed Marandi on the return to conflict in the Persian Gulf, May 2026
Glenn Diesen speaks with Seyed Marandi, professor at Tehran University and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team, on May 5, 2026.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Seyed Marandi the day after the United States attempted to force ships through the Strait of Hormuz, an operation Marandi says failed entirely. Marandi argues that the US destroyed civilian boats while claiming military targets, that Iran's missile strikes on US naval vessels were deliberate warning shots rather than attempts to sink ships, and that the Emirates — which he describes as openly aligned with Israel — suffered significant damage. He contends that the US initiated this new phase of hostilities precisely because the siege of Iranian ports was not working, and that Trump's decision to downplay the incident as a non-breach of the ceasefire reveals anxiety rather than confidence. Marandi warns that if the US escalates to striking Iranian electrical infrastructure, the Gulf states would become uninhabitable and the world would face a prolonged economic depression, not merely a recession. He also argues that time, heat, ammunition shortages, and the resilience of Iran's resistance economy all favor Iran, and that Western expert commentary on Iran has been systematically distorted by an orientalist and supremacist framework that prevents accurate strategic assessment.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: The US Operation in the Strait of Hormuz
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. Today is Tuesday the 5th of May 2026 and we are joined by Seyed Marandi, a professor at Tehran University and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team. Thank you for coming back on. We see that a lot of things have happened over the past 24 hours. Yesterday the United States had already announced in advance that it would break open the Strait of Hormuz, and throughout the day we got many conflicting reports about what was actually happening. So I'm hoping now that things are settling we have a clearer overview of what has actually been happening. Are we returning to all-out war, or how are you reading the situation?
Seyed Marandi: I think that as things stand, we are moving towards all-out war. What happened basically was that the Americans, for whatever reason, initiated a new stage in this war by attempting to carry out an operation to take ships through the Strait of Hormuz, and it didn't work. What they did do was they destroyed civilian boats. They claimed that they destroyed military boats, but there were no military boats. Iran is not using its military boats under these circumstances. Right now, Iran only uses its missile systems — and older missile systems for now — against the United States. The missiles that the Iranians have fired at US ships, for the time being, are warning shots. Iran doesn't want to initiate a war. So it fires warning shots so that the Americans on these naval vessels get nervous, see that Iran is serious, and pull back.
What the Americans did, though, was that they bombed the boats that were carrying goods. I think five people were killed — all civilians — from the news reports that are coming out. But of course, Western media is not going to go with that. They'll always go with the official narrative. Just like whenever they bomb Beirut, they call them Hezbollah targets or Hezbollah strongholds. Here they'll go with whatever the American government says.
The Iranians put out a statement with regards to the Emirates blaming it on the Americans. You could read it both ways — that somehow the Americans did it, or that it's the Americans' fault that the Emirati targets were struck. But in any case, I don't think that the Americans did it. I think that basically yesterday didn't turn out well for the United States.
The Emirates, which is the representative of the Israeli regime in the Persian Gulf — it is an ally of the regime, it is even distancing itself from other Arab countries — and if people go and look on social media, which is not very representative because pro-Arab regime social media is very active, a lot of money is spent by Arab regimes on social media and people can go to jail for social media posts in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates. They pay a lot of money for social media. But even despite all that, on social media and on the streets, from what I'm hearing, people are supporting Iran when it strikes these countries — except for the Wahhabis and the Salafis, which were always funded by intelligence agencies. ISIS, al-Qaeda — these are all tools of the United States and its regional proxies. Those quarters always attack Iran and support whoever is on the other side. But the strong majority of people on the streets throughout the Arab world are with Iran against these regimes.
And among these regimes, the most despised of them all is the United Arab Emirates because it is openly aligned with the Israeli regime. We hear that Israeli troops are in the country assisting the Emirates, and the Emirates have been distancing itself — they've left OPEC, they've left the organization for Arab oil-producing countries. So I think that by hitting Emirati targets, that's basically being seen as hitting Israeli targets in today's environment.
So I think this was all a failure. The Americans failed to get ships through. They murdered a handful of ordinary Iranians who were moving cargo on a boat — or a couple of boats, not quite sure, I think two boats. And we are where we were the day before yesterday. The only difference is that the global economic crisis is growing. The belief is that within a week or two the crisis is going to reach new proportions. Until now it's like a cancer patient or someone who's severely ill and only shows signs of illness like a fever. The high oil prices, the high energy prices in general, the rise in the cost of food — this is the fever. But what we are going to start seeing in the days ahead is the supply chains beginning to collapse, and then the global economy is going to be severely disrupted, especially since in today's world supply chains are so interlinked. Unlike the Iranian economy, which has been under siege for decades and which is a sort of resistance economy in itself, the global economy is extremely vulnerable because in those supply chains, if one piece is broken, the whole supply chain basically becomes useless.
So nothing has changed. We're on the verge of war. The Americans have brought in large numbers of troops and equipment. Most of the planes we've seen going back and forth in the region from the United States or from US bases in Europe and elsewhere — the focus was on bringing equipment for land offensives. Their land troops, from my understanding, are mostly based in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Emirates. That's where they're prepared. But of course the US air force, refueling planes, Saudi Arabia, the Israeli regime, and Qatar — all of them are involved. But apparently from what I'm hearing, the ground troops are focused and most of them are in these countries.
Why the UAE Is Being Targeted
Glenn Diesen: I was planning to ask why Iran was hitting the United Arab Emirates disproportionately compared to the other Gulf states. But I guess they have been at the forefront against Iran. It is a bit perplexing to know why the United Arab Emirates is seemingly so gung-ho on war with Iran as opposed to Qatar or Saudi Arabia or others. I did want to ask though how you expect the war to go this time around, because last time when the 40-day war began there was a big surprise that Iran decided to go quickly up the escalation ladder — shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and going after US bases. Do you think this escalation this time around will be even more intense, or do you think the US will try to manage it? Because it appears that Americans have a hard time doing high-intensity warfare over a longer period of time, simply due to lack of ammunition.
Seyed Marandi: First of all, there was no surprise — or there shouldn't have been. I know that you weren't surprised, but I for one have been saying Iran will knock out oil and gas production for around a decade, I suppose. In fact, I remember the first time I said this it went quite viral — or one of the first times I said it went quite viral. It was on Press TV and it went viral in the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, and a lot of friends and acquaintances contacted me and said, "Why did you say this?" And I said, "Well, it's a fact. The bases are there and you'll be complicit, and that's what Iran will do." Iran has been talking about the Strait of Hormuz for years. It's not as if I have some brilliant military mind — the Iranians have been saying this. If people just listened to what Iranian senior military officials have been saying over the years, they would have known this would happen. It doesn't take any special mental capabilities or access to intelligence.
But the Americans, with that exceptionalist worldview — that is their biggest problem, I think, because they always underestimate everyone else. Everyone else is inferior, less intelligent, less sophisticated, less capable. I remember for years Western media would ridicule Iranian missiles. They would make fun of them — not because they had any knowledge that these were inferior missiles, but because they had to be inferior because they were Iranian. You know, the mad mullahs, the medieval Iranians — that sort of nonsense they've been saying for decades. So they probably knew what the Iranians were saying, but they just ignored it and said, "Well, that's just rhetoric coming from Tehran. As soon as we fire a shot, they'll fold."
I think it's difficult to say what will happen because you're right that the Americans are short of ammunition, but also we are not far from the complete annihilation of the oil and energy supplies from the Persian Gulf region. During the last war, a lot of damage was done. The Americans like to say — you heard Trump say — that Iranian oil wells are about to blow up, which is nonsense. The Iranians have been used to sanctions being imposed and maximum pressure and then having to cut exports and increase them again. So Iran knows how to play with its oil production, especially since most of Iran's oil production is consumed at home. So it can maneuver — it can decrease production from one well, increase it at another.
But the countries in the rest of the Persian Gulf don't have that experience. They've just been part of the US-led global economic order, producing oil for decades, and it's never occurred to them that they could have such problems. Their oil production — and in many cases their gas production — has almost been completely shut down, and that does enormous damage. So you have enormous damage to the installations, enormous damage to many of their oil and gas wells, and then of course all these ships that are stuck and some of them increasingly being hit. Every few days a couple of ships are hit. The more ships that are damaged or destroyed, the worse it becomes when the strait is finally opened.
So if another war starts, I think we won't have any more oil and gas exported to the world for a very long time, and that means global economic depression. But even if it's a short war — because you're right, the Americans don't have the sort of ammunition they need — there's also another element here, Glenn, and we've discussed this before. I'm not a military expert. I fought as a volunteer during the war, but we both have friends in the military who we've been on their shows online, and they agree with what I say — and I mean former American military — and that is that we are in the month of May, and by the end of May it's going to get very hot and humid in the Arabian Peninsula. So it's going to be much harder for American troops to function easily under such an environment.
But also, if there is war and Trump does go after Iranian infrastructure — yesterday he spoke about wiping out the Iranian nation, which is mindboggling. What Americans and Europeans can say, and no one in the media will be outraged. Not a single journalist will tweet in outrage. Just like the daily slaughter that we see in Lebanon, it's not even mentioned in the Western media, or the daily killings in Gaza. No one even talks about it. We're living in very disturbing times, at least when one looks at the Western elites.
But if there is war and they start striking Iranian critical infrastructure, Iran will definitely strike back at the Israeli regime but also at these regimes. And the weather in these countries would become intolerable. People would not be able to survive there. They'd have to leave immediately. And it would not be much different for US troops. So just like in Russia — or the Soviet Union back in the day — winter was a general of its own, helping the Russians fight their wars. The summer would be very helpful to the Iranian side. So the window of opportunity for the Americans has become smaller, and they do have a shortage of ammunition.
I find it a bit difficult to imagine that the Americans are going to go for a long war, so it'll probably be short and intense, and the Iranians have said they're going to be very intense. And one thing, Glenn, that the Americans should appreciate is that whenever the Iranians say that they're more prepared than before, they don't lie. The Iranians don't lie about these things. True Promise 2 was very different from True Promise 1. Both were sort of trial runs, practice runs. Then True Promise 3 — we saw during the 12-day war that Iran won that war despite the fact that they were hit hard on day one. And then the 39 days of fighting — they won hands down, no doubt about it. And then the siege: if the siege was so effective, the Americans wouldn't be provoking Iran right now. All they'd have to do is stop talking, lay back, and wait. But the reality is that time is on Iran's side and they know it. The global economy is moving towards collapse very swiftly, and the Iranians will tolerate this.
If that wasn't the case, we wouldn't have this new operation. Trump wouldn't have begun a new stage in the conflict. The only reason he's doing that is because siege warfare is not working. And I think that's another sign of desperation. But the problem is that the more the Americans wait, the closer we get to the cliff. And whether he carries out an operation or not, it makes it even worse because we're so much closer to that cliff.
So I would imagine that if he starts a war — because of the heat, because of the shortage of ammunition, and because of the harsh Iranian response — it may not last that long, but it's not going to solve any problems because ultimately the crisis is because of the Strait of Hormuz. And we saw that in his operation he failed. Nothing changed in the Strait of Hormuz. It just showed that Iran is in full control and the Emirates were badly damaged. The damage done to the remaining Emirati oil exports under these circumstances, where there's such a huge shortage, was enormous. And it also tells us what could easily happen to the remainder of Saudi oil exports, which go to the Red Sea, if there's a new conflict.
Western Narratives, Strategic Miscalculation, and Why the US Returned to War
Glenn Diesen: On the topic of the way the media has been talking down Iranian military capabilities — this is such a common theme, this self-delusion if you will. There's a book I would recommend to viewers: a Holocaust survivor, Victor Klemperer, wrote a book on the language of the Third Reich, and he was making the point that when you have one side seeing itself as superior, it often manifests itself in this duality where they had complete contempt for the Jews as inferior, but at the same time would portray them as threatening civilization itself. And you see with Iran this superior-inferiority reference — it's always the backwardness, the assumption that they can't make a drone that works or missiles, while at the same time Iran is an overwhelming threat to the entire world. And we have to fight, and it's only lack of will — if one fights, the whole thing will fall apart because again they're weak. And they do the same with Russia: a gas station masquerading as a country, but also a threat to all of civilization. And with China: the only reason they have good technology is because they stole it from us, but they're massive threats. So if we just tighten the screws on economic war, surely they will fall apart. And then time and time again they're always surprised when it doesn't work out that way.
This is something inherited not just from the past 30 years of unipolarity but from five centuries of Western dominance. It can't help but fuel some self-delusion, and they often end up with these two views simultaneously — both weak and an overwhelming threat. You mentioned something interesting though: the Americans were saying the blockade on Iran was working, that's what politicians and journalists were reassuring everyone every day. But even though they said it was working and suffocating Iran, the US decided to return to war, which it doesn't really have a good plan for. It seems to be an indication that perhaps it was not true that the blockade was working. But what do you think the purpose was? They know they can't break it open. Was it to probe Iran, to see if Iran would stand down? It's hard to see, because also the US was the one who really wanted the negotiations and the ceasefire in place. We know this because they agreed to Iran's ten-point plan. So how do you make sense of this? They finally got their ceasefire, they learned that if they start fighting they might not be able to choose how the war ends or when it ends — and yet they decide to go back into this.
Seyed Marandi: You know, Glenn, I think it goes back again to what you just said — these narrative constructions are not just the result of the last 30 years. They're the result of 500 years of empire. So even when their actions lead to results that are unexpected — because their predictions are based on that sense of superiority and this alleged backwardness and stupidity and inferiority of the other, or the Iranians in particular — even when that happens, it doesn't change their mentality.
For example, their expectation was that Iran would collapse in the 12-day war. Western embassies in Tehran reacted in such a manner that it was clear they were expecting collapse in about two days. And when Iran came out on top, that didn't change the mentality. So they were surprised, but then when the new war — the Ramadan war, the 39 days of fighting — began, they again expected Iran to collapse. Even friends of mine in different parts of the world who I've been in communication with say how surprised they were that Iran performed so well, and how extraordinarily well both sides performed. So you would think that these outcomes would bring about new, realistic calculations. But they don't.
When the ceasefire began, the Americans said, "Well, now the Iranians are broken. They're on the ropes. All we have to do is just keep threatening them with renewed conflict." As if they were not the ones who were seeking the ceasefire in the first place. Because after a few days, they were constantly sending messages. Apparently after three or four days, Witkoff was sending messages, but after 10 days I know they were officially sending messages. And the Iranians ignored them until around day 34 or 35 or something like that, when the Americans sent their 15-point plan. Iran rejected it, then gave its own 10-point plan, and Trump accepted it as a framework for negotiations — as you alluded to earlier. So they were the ones who wanted the ceasefire. They were the ones who had to accept Iran's terms for the framework, and Trump was attacked because of that.
But then again, they go back into that old mentality. I saw a clip from a so-called Iran expert — I don't want to name him, it's not even worthy of naming — but he was saying the Iranians are desperate, they're trying to train dolphins to attack American ships. I think you tweeted it too. It's like — these are utterly unserious people, but these are the people they listen to in Washington. Not just the Trump administration — the Obama administration, the Biden administration, the Bush administration. These are the experts. And this is a Soviet thing by the way — you know this better than I do — the training of dolphins to spy or to do whatever. I remember when I was young I heard about the Soviets training dolphins to do whatever, but it's a complete joke. He's trying to imply that Iran is desperate. And because there's a vested interest in this as well — not only because of this orientalist mindset and the supremacist mindset, or the Zionist mindset where they're the master race and the rest of us are subhuman — but also because all these people who are funded to talk about Iran have been saying the same things all their lives. They're not going to suddenly reverse course and say, "Oh, actually the Iranians are very smart, very sophisticated. Their state, their constitution works so well. Their leader is murdered in a time of war by a superpower and yet they're not going to collapse." They're going to continue to repeat the same narrative, justified with evidence from here and there.
So nothing has really changed. Again, this is all speculation on my part to get to the answer to your question. I think that during the ceasefire period, the Americans were saying how brilliant the siege on Iranian ports was. Well, first there was a siege on the whole Persian Gulf, and then they thought, "Well, that's not smart," so they went and said this is on Iranian ports specifically. It just shows how brilliant they are. And then they said, "Oh, this is great, this is brilliant." But first of all, it's utterly stupid because if you wanted to do this, you should have done it on day one, not now. The Strait of Hormuz was closed basically to everyone but Iran for 50 days or so. And remember, they were saying they removed sanctions from Iranian oil — "Look, we are smart, this is actually to the detriment of Iran." So Iran was selling its oil for 50 days at a very high price, before they struck Iranian petrochemicals and all that. So Iran was the only side making a lot of money. You should have done that on day one, because right now Iran has a lot of money.
Iran had almost 200 million barrels on the sea, and the Russians had substantial amounts as well — all of that is gone now, it's finished. So the markets are tightening and tightening. And the Iranians were prepared for that. The Iranians thought the Americans were going to impose a siege on the Persian Gulf from day one. So they already had plans to start doing trade from Pakistan and other countries, and trying to find markets in neighboring countries for their oil and so on. But the Americans did the opposite. So after finally, after 50-some days, they began their brilliant siege, they weren't thinking that the global economy is already rushing toward a cliff, and all they're going to do is push it faster.
I think they thought, "Well, we'll impose the siege and the Iranians are desperate and they need a way out. They can't continue." Again the same narrative, the same mentality. So the war, Iran's abilities during the 39 days — all of that will be set aside. They'll start listening to their Iran experts saying they're desperate at home, the economic situation is horrible. Maybe if next week 50 people gather somewhere saying they need jobs, they'll focus on that and say, "Look, the regime is about to collapse." And then they'll just continue down the same path.
So I think what Trump did — and this is my guess, sorry for that long rambling introduction — I think he wanted to see if the Iranians would react, or whether the Iranians would be intimidated and allow them to do this. Because it doesn't make sense to view it in any other way. Nothing has changed to make it possible for the Americans to just go in and have these ships leave. The Iranian military has prepared since the ceasefire. They've been working day and night to rebuild their assets and also to develop new capabilities. So the only thing that comes to my mind is that Trump and his people thought that Iran is scared, that Iran doesn't want war. So maybe if they go and say, "We're taking out these ships," the Iranians would calculate that it's not a good idea to stand in their way and hit back. And of course the opposite happened. That's how I see it. Now, maybe in a few days you're going to get some report from some American newspaper saying this was just some other stupid idea by someone, and there will be a different explanation. But that's the only thing I can think of — that they were hoping Iran is tired and worn out and scared and desperate to have this over. So now we'll just move in, have those ships come out, and they won't dare hit us.
Glenn Diesen: You're probably correct that this was just Trump trying to probe to see if Iran would let it pass, because once the hostilities broke out it seemed that Trump was careful about calling it a breach of ceasefire and tried to talk down how severe what actually happened was — which is what you would expect from someone who's probing and then trying to walk it back, as opposed to Lindsey Graham and the Israelis who are now yelling at the top of their lungs that this is a breach and now we have to go back to war. So it could be. But again I try not to listen too much to what Trump is actually saying.
The expert class you refer to — it is interesting, because I always told my students, I was teaching at a department of policing, intelligence, and counterterrorism, that you should never hate your enemies or your opponents because you can't have any serious analysis once you hate them. And the problem I think is often a common theme noticed in the West now is that it's almost obligatory to hate opponents — whether it's the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese. And I think this is how the expert class is formed. They're loyal to narratives, and that's why they're brought back as experts, because they help to maintain and manage the narrative. But it is obligatory to hate the opponent — this is a very important part of the narrative, that they are evil and weak. And I think this is a reason why all the analysis, and thus the policies deriving from it, are so horrible.
Predictions: What Happens If All-Out War Returns
My last question though: if you would make any predictions — I know most people do not care for it — but if we do return now to all-out war, what do you expect to happen this time around? Do you think the Red Sea will be closed off quickly? Would the UAE get more involved? What might happen if we go down that path?
Seyed Marandi: Well, the UAE is not important. There's not much it can do. There's nothing it can contribute to the US war effort. It's hard to say. It depends on how long the war lasts and how much the Americans will escalate. Iran has, from my understanding, the capability to sink US naval ships at a pretty long range. That's what I heard from someone who is pretty credible a couple of weeks ago. But the Iranians never did that because they have this plan which is linked to the escalation ladder. So it depends on how high up the escalation ladder the Americans go. The Red Sea's closure has a lot to do again with how far up the escalation ladder the Americans go — or even an assault from Yemen into Saudi Arabia. The same is true in Iraq. The Iraqi capabilities go far further than what they did, even though they were very active during the war. The increase in their offensive actions depends on the escalation.
So a lot will depend on what the Americans do, how intense the strikes will be, how long-lasting they will be, and what the targets are. If the Americans go for like a two or three day attack — a short attack — and then want to say, "Okay, now we've won, we really hit them hard," and they don't hit anything like critical infrastructure, then that will cause further damage. Iran will strike back hard, fire a lot of missiles at Israel and US targets and targets inside these countries. That would be more limited.
If the United States though starts striking Iran's electrical power plants, as they've threatened, and bridges, then I think that's the end of the countries in the Persian Gulf region. I've been saying this since the beginning of the war. And I've been telling people in these countries that as citizens they should be prepared to leave if that's what's going to happen.
One thing I'd like to add, Glenn, is that Iran has been very careful about civilian targets. We had 3,400 or so people murdered by the Americans and the Israelis, with the complicity of these Arab regimes including Jordan. If you look at the numbers in the Persian Gulf — the number of people who died as a result of Iranian strikes from Kuwait to the Emirates — it was around 20 people or less than 20 people. So Iran has always been very careful not to target civilians. But the only way to make the Americans refrain from trying to wipe us out or take us back to the stone age is the threat of retaliation. And I'm sure you recall that when they struck Iran's South Pars gas field, the Iranians hit back very hard at Qatar and the Emirates, and then Trump put out that Truth Social post saying, "I didn't know about this. Netanyahu is not going to do this anymore." Why? Because Iran said: if you escalate, we're going to escalate too. We're going to respond and hit even harder.
So if they go after Iran's critical infrastructure, then Iran is going to go after critical infrastructure in Israel but also in these regimes — at a time when it's summer and the world is very dependent on hoping for all this to end so that they could have energy from the Persian Gulf region. Iran's electrical power plants are spread out across the country — they have like 80 or 90 power plants. The Gulf states have only a handful, and they're very large. So all Iran has to do is hit them. There's no electricity. Now, gas and oil installations — they can strike those and with one blow take Qatar back 20 years. But if they take out the electrical power plants, then everyone will leave. It will be very hot and humid and American soldiers will have to leave. So that would be a different scenario, and that would mean we are definitely heading for a global depression — not recession, a global depression — for years.
But if it's short, it's still going to make things worse because negotiations and a real ceasefire are only going to be set back further. And time is not on the side of the Americans. If it was, as we discussed earlier, they wouldn't have started this new operation. Trump would have just said, "Okay, let's sit back and wait till the Iranians fall apart as they were supposed to do at the beginning of the 12-day war and at the beginning of this war." And then go and kill the Cubans and slaughter the Cuban people, which is next on the list.
Hopefully that won't happen. And this is the hope in Iran — this is what Iranians are saying: hopefully we'll be able to weaken the Americans so badly that they'll no longer be able to go after the Cubans, and that the Venezuelans will get their country back. But in any case, I think it all depends on the scale of escalation and the length of the escalation. And for me, that's impossible to assess because Trump is just Trump. Netanyahu and the Zionists want a long and brutal war. I think probably Trump does not want more war. So it may be that he goes down their road, or it may be that he goes somewhere in the middle — some short-term war, especially because of the heat and all that. But then it depends: is it going to be intense or not intense? And the very fact that Trump played this down and said it wasn't a breach of the ceasefire — even though if it was a breach, it was him who breached it — whatever the reason he said that, it does show that he is worried.
Glenn Diesen: Well, I have a bit different expectation about Cuba though. I think that after a humiliating defeat against Iran, the US — or Trump especially — would have to score a victory. So I don't think Iran's victory would necessarily be good for Cuba. I think the US would not be more measured. I think they would only have to find another victory. Anyways, thank you very much for taking the time so early in the day to speak with me, and please stay safe over there. I hope this war won't spin out of control.
Seyed Marandi: Thank you, Glenn. It's always a pleasure, always an honor. And hopefully, whether it's in our region or in the Caribbean or elsewhere, people will see better days ahead.