Seyed Marandi provides live analysis from Tehran as Iran-Israel strikes escalate and Yemen restricts Red Sea access
Glenn Diesen interviews Seyed Marandi, professor at Tehran University and former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team, during an active exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel.
Summary
Glenn Diesen speaks with Seyed Marandi from Tehran on a day of active missile exchanges between Iran and Israel, with Marandi reporting that Iranian strikes have been disproportionately larger than Israeli ones on each of the three most recent occasions of exchange. Marandi argues that Iran has fundamentally changed the rules of engagement by extending its deterrence to Lebanon, warning that any Israeli strike on Beirut will be met with a heavy Iranian response. He contends that the Lebanese government, installed under US influence, has actively worked against the interests of the Lebanese resistance and its supporters, while Israel, the US, and the al-Qaeda-linked Syrian government have coordinated to isolate Hezbollah. Marandi also argues that Trump's public statements claiming he told Netanyahu not to attack serve either to expose Trump as ineffectual or to lay the groundwork for removing Netanyahu as a political liability. He concludes that Iran's closure of Persian Gulf shipping lanes, combined with Yemen's restriction of Red Sea access, are escalatory signals, and that Iran will not accept any agreement that does not include an end to the wars in Lebanon and Gaza, a lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil, and the return of frozen Iranian assets.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and situation on the ground in Tehran
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We have the great privilege of being joined today by Seyed Marandi, a professor at Tehran University and also a former adviser to Iran's nuclear negotiation team. Thank you very much for taking the time to come on today. As I understand, it's been a bit of a chaotic day. We've seen over the last few days that Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon, which were supposed to be under a ceasefire. Iran seemingly retaliated by striking Israel. Trump then promised that he would talk to Netanyahu asking him not to retaliate against Iran. Israel has appeared to ignore this — if it was true to begin with — as Israel has now attacked Iran. And as a result we also see now that Yemen has announced it will shut down Israel's access to the Red Sea. Again, this appears to be spiraling very quickly back to what could be an all-out war, except it could be much worse or much greater this time than the 12-day war, given that access to the Red Sea and other arenas of escalation could come into play. You are there in Tehran — can you unpack what is going on, because this appears to be quite dramatic.
Seyed Marandi: Thank you very much for inviting me, Glenn. This morning I've been busy with my colleagues in my department interviewing prospective PhD students. The city is huge and I did not hear any of the air strikes that took place. There were I think two or three air strikes that took place in Tehran — maybe three or four, I'm not sure — but I didn't hear any of it and we were just busy doing our interviews, which finished about an hour ago. On my way here I read a bit, but my understanding from discussions with friends who are better informed than I am is that Iran has the upper hand and the Israeli regime is not doing well, and that the Iranian missile strikes have been very effective. Last night Iran fired I think five waves of missiles, and since then they've been firing large numbers of missiles. I think it's probably approaching 100 by now, at 2:30 in the afternoon here. The situation I think is not going well for the Americans and the Israeli regime, and that's already been made pretty clear by Trump's post on Truth Social calling to end this immediately — because his allies are not doing well.
This was an important event because the United States, in its negotiations with the Israeli regime and its proxies in the Lebanese government, clearly had no intention of bringing about a ceasefire in Lebanon. It just wanted to dismantle the resistance and allow the Israeli regime to maintain its presence in the country. The Lebanese president and the Lebanese prime minister were both unpopular figures in the last parliamentary elections, where Hezbollah's allies did the best. The president's people got I think one-third of the votes of the Hezbollah coalition. He doesn't have a popular mandate. And the negotiations with the Israeli regime, which are illegal according to Lebanese law, the only fruit they bore is the bitter fruit of death — because hours after the meeting, or shortly after the meeting, and just hours after an interview in which the president of Lebanon appeared on CNN attacking Iran, the Israelis bombed a convoy of the Lebanese military, killing a lieutenant general and his companions. It just shows that appeasing the regime does you no good. Even when you do what they want and give the concessions they want, you get nothing in return except the death of your soldiers. The Israelis have no intention of walking away.
So in that interview where he attacked Iran, it was ironic, because the only country that is supporting Lebanon in the face of these violations of the ceasefire and this mass slaughter is Iran. What the Lebanese government is doing is basically preventing refugees from traveling around the country. They won't let them go to different parts of their own country. They're cornering them and they're trying to make this sectarian. Western NGOs in Lebanon and Western embassies are encouraging their people not to allow the refugees — who are predominantly Shia, though supporters of the resistance come from all religious backgrounds and all walks of life — not to allow them into their neighborhoods. The Qataris and the Saudis through their proxies are doing the same. They're trying to prevent supporters of the resistance who lost their homes from finding refuge. As a result, some people have died because they were forced to go back to their villages in the south and then were bombed and killed.
So the Lebanese president and the prime minister have a lot of blood on their hands. The al-Qaeda government in Damascus is working with the Israelis to keep the border closed so that the resistance can't get assistance. The installed regime in Beirut is trying to corner them and is preventing any aid from coming from Iran or Iraq. People in Iran and Iraq are gathering food, canned goods, blankets, tents, money — but they're not allowed to send them, because what the government of Lebanon wants to do is crush the resistance. They want to humiliate its supporters. They want to humiliate really the majority of the Lebanese people. Why? Because they're proxies of the United States. That's what they were installed to do in the first place.
But despite that, Hezbollah has been striking back and we've seen how effective they've been in such an environment, which I think is extraordinary. The Iranians saw that when the Israelis wanted to start bombing Dahiyeh, that was the last place where these refugees could go. The people in southern Beirut are large in number, and then all sorts of refugees from across the south went to Beirut. What the Israeli regime was planning to do was to level the city. It's quite stunning — we live in a day and age where, since I was a kid, Western governments always pretended to support human rights. The last two and a half to three years have been an eye-opener every day, but Western media and Western governments say nothing about the Israelis wanting to carpet bomb Beirut and level the city, as they themselves would say.
So the Iranians saw that the West supported this, that the Lebanese government was supporting this, and that the al-Qaeda government in Syria was supporting this. They said no, we can't let this happen. They said that if the Israelis bomb Beirut, we will strike the Israeli regime. And the interesting thing is that for two, three, four days — I don't know the exact timing — the Israelis refrained from striking Beirut. But as soon as the Pakistani minister of interior came to Iran with a message — and Pakistan is the mediator — the Israelis struck Beirut. So it's clear that the Israelis do not want to see any progress at the negotiating table between Iran and the United States.
In any case, in response, the Iranians felt that they had to retaliate, that they had to strike the regime. And I'm surprised that some people inside the regime thought that Iran wouldn't retaliate. It just shows how ignorant they are, how little the Mossad really has a grasp of reality and of how the political leadership in Iran thinks and works. It's evident — just as I've been saying for years that Iran will shut down the Strait of Hormuz and cut off oil, and I've said it on your show many times — I thought it was quite evident that Iran would do that. They didn't see it. And they thought Iran wouldn't strike, and then when Iran struck, Iran struck in a very big way. The Iranian strike far outweighed the Israeli regime's strike.
This is now something of a pattern, because during the last week or two, during the last two times the United States violated the ceasefire and attacked Iran, Iran did the same thing. Iran's counter-strikes were disproportionate — much more severe in magnitude. So on the three last occasions, the Iranian responses to US aggression and to the bombing of Beirut have been far larger than the original strikes. I think there's a lot that can be read into that.
Iran's strategy of disproportionate response and the economic pressure of the blockade
Glenn Diesen: It seems that this is a well thought-out Iranian strategy, because it appears that the US position is that they would like to avoid a high-intensity war — they don't have the resources for it. They would also like to maintain some escalation control. During all these peace talks, one often gets the impression that the key objective isn't necessarily to put an end to the conflict but to bring it down to a lower level — get the fighting to an end and then gradually move a little bit up the escalation ladder on favorable terms. Put a little bit of a blockade on Iran, maybe strike a port here and there, all the while trying to minimize the opponent's retaliation. But with the closure now of Bab el-Mandeb, the strait leading into the Red Sea, do you see Iran essentially countering this effort to conduct a low-intensity war that gradually bleeds out Iran — responding instead with the threat of a high-intensity war which the Americans can't afford?
Seyed Marandi: Yes, I think the Iranians have basically done what you've described. The Americans think that through the siege they can starve Iranians and bring them to their knees, but that obviously is a double-edged sword, because they're starving the whole global economy and doing immense damage. The stock markets have gone sharply down since Friday. The energy crisis and the shortages — the lack of helium, the shortage of fertilizers and petrochemical goods — this situation, with the booming stock market suddenly not doing so well and the real economy in serious difficulty, is going to make the challenges much greater for the United States and its allies in the weeks ahead. So this double-edged sword is not necessarily going to bear the sort of fruit that Trump wants it to bear.
And on the other hand, as you rightly point out, they've been trying to carry out low-intensity strikes for a host of purposes — to discover Iran's capabilities, to weaken Iran, to intimidate Iran. But Iran's responses in the last two to three weeks have been to intimidate the other side, to intimidate the Trump regime and the Netanyahu regime. And I think the Iranians have made it clear that they're fully prepared to restart the hot war. This time around it's going to be far more explosive.
The Red Sea, as you rightly pointed out, is partially closed now. But this is sending a signal that if you push harder, then the Red Sea will be fully closed. The Persian Gulf is now closed — as you know, every day the Iranians would allow roughly 25 to 30 ships to pass through, and for the last two or three days now no ships are going through. This intensifies the ongoing crisis and creates greater pressure on the United States. And of course Iran's military actions, as I said, send a very strong message. I think this is just a series of miscalculations by the United States and its allies, and they still can't come to the recognition that they just can't defeat Iran.
Trump's public statements and the US-Israel relationship
Glenn Diesen: About the stock market — I see that Trump took to Twitter and reassured everyone that he is mediating an end to the conflict between Israel and Iran. It's almost a parallel to the Ukraine war, where the US is trying to mediate now between the Ukrainians and the Russians, even though it's been the main actor and the one who initiated the wars. I'm wondering if this is just good cop, bad cop theater with Netanyahu, or if there are real divisions emerging. Because the actions taken against Lebanon — all the destruction we're seeing — make it very difficult for the US to control the escalation ladder if Israel is going all out seeking to destroy not just Lebanon but even going after the capital Beirut. How do you see the relationship now between the US and Israel? Is it just theater or is something substantial happening?
Seyed Marandi: I think I may have mentioned this last time, but the Axios report — which is completely unreliable — attributing comments to Trump about when he spoke with Netanyahu, effectively saying the world hates Israel, the world hates you, and asking whether he was crazy: whether that was theater or not, I think it was sending a message. Because we are nearing the anniversary of the 12-day war, and right before that war we also had another Axios account of Trump and Netanyahu having differences, with Trump wanting to pursue a negotiated settlement — and then immediately afterwards they struck Iran. So obviously it was a lie. Nothing that Axios says should be taken at face value.
But either he did say it or he didn't — to me it's not really important. What is important is that it was published. This was not an announcement of some sort of split between Netanyahu and Trump about what to do. This was a statement saying Netanyahu is despised, and because of him Israel is despised, and that he's crazy. And Netanyahu took a big hit in Israel because of that. His opponents attacked him, his political allies attacked him. I think he was damaged in the United States and elsewhere too, because many people saw the Axios report.
I think this is in a sense an attempt to weaken Netanyahu — not Israel. I don't see any space between the Trump regime and the Israeli regime. But I do think that since elections are approaching, maybe some Zionists in the United States — the Israeli-firsters — want to get rid of Netanyahu because they see that the image of Israel is being destroyed, that Israel is being delegitimized in the eyes of the world, and that they need a facelift. Perhaps if Netanyahu loses the election and someone else comes in, they can give it a facelift. I mean, Netanyahu's opponents are just as genocidal — it's a genocidal country according to their own polls. But someone else comes in, they can give a facelift, and all the media outlets could blame Netanyahu for all the ills and wrongs, and then try to create a new image for a new leader. That's what I was thinking. The only useful thing that can come out of such a report, especially since apparently multiple sources gave this information to Axios, is that sort of agenda.
Now here again we're seeing Trump saying "I'm telling him not to attack, he's wrecking the peace agreement." Why would he do that? Netanyahu strikes. Maybe Trump is fine with that if he strikes. Maybe the US is supporting him as we speak — US tankers are refueling Israeli regime jets, the United States is helping to stop Iranian missiles, US radar installations in Turkey, AWACS jets in Turkey and in Jordan and in the Persian Gulf are attempting to help the Israeli regime. They're helping. But why would Trump say that Netanyahu is wrecking a peace agreement? I think again this goes back to what I was saying — maybe they want to say that Netanyahu is part of the problem and that we need to remove the problem for a solution. This is just speculation. I've said it elsewhere and no one else has said it, so maybe I'm just talking nonsense. But I can't figure out any other meaningful explanation for Trump to say "I'm going to tell Netanyahu not to attack" and then say "I was about to have a peace agreement and then this happens." What does anyone conclude but that Netanyahu is wrecking the peace, that the global crisis we're experiencing is his fault? I think the purpose is ultimately to get rid of Netanyahu, maybe.
But sorry — just one thing. It still weakens Trump, because it just shows that Trump is ineffectual. For Trump to come out and say "I told him not to do this" and then he does it anyway — even though all the funding comes from the United States and now they want to merge the US armed forces with the Israelis — it doesn't look good for Trump to say "I told him not to do it, he can't do anything without my permission," and then he does. It just makes Trump look like a nobody.
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, that's the thing. When he announces "I told Netanyahu not to attack," either he's deceitful or he is weak — or I guess it could be both. But you're right, none of this makes him look good in any way. When I say there is an attempt to weaken Netanyahu, I'm not saying that necessarily Trump is the one behind it. But the people who published the information on Axios, whoever they may be, I think that is something they may be seeking.
The new ceasefire signals and Iran's conditions for any agreement
What do you see Iran possibly doing now? Because Iran has allegedly made clear they're not going to strike Israel now — that they've finished, unless of course Israel continues hitting Lebanon, in which case Iran will continue. Israel and the United States have apparently sent a message to Iran that there won't be any more attacks on Iran if Iran doesn't launch another attack on Israel. But none of this new ceasefire — and there have been quite a few by now — is premised on conditions that address the full picture. It doesn't mention that the Iranians won't continue their onslaught in Lebanon, and the US insists it will step up the blockade on Iran, targeting Iranian ships. Are they essentially reshaping what a ceasefire should look like? That is — we're not going to bomb Iran unless you bomb Israel, but all the other variables — the destruction of Lebanon, the blockade — will of course remain in place. To what extent would this be acceptable to Iran? It looks as if this is an effort to have escalation control: they escalate the tensions and then set the conditions for how the tensions should be lowered again.
Seyed Marandi: Iran has changed the rules of the game by saying that you are not permitted to strike Lebanon. From now on, the Israeli regime knows that Iran is dead serious. If the Iranians say tomorrow — first of all, I'm sure that if the regime attacks Beirut again, Iran will strike Israel hard. I have no doubt about that. Whether there's a ceasefire now or not, that's another thing altogether. If the Israeli regime does it, they know what will happen. And it won't be like one or two rockets — they fired two or three rockets into Beirut, and Iran fired 20 missiles, heavy missiles, and almost all of them hit their targets. I think they fired mostly Shahab missiles and almost every one of them hit their targets. So it must have been a devastating night last night.
The Iranians are going to definitely change the way in which the Israeli regime functions in Lebanon, and that makes it much more difficult for them because they're not doing well on the battlefield. With regards to the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has shut down all trade now, and that is going to increase the pace of the global crisis. We're moving forward towards the cliff — the world economy — and now it's just going to be faster. What Yemen has done in the Red Sea raises the stakes, as they say in the West.
Trump — it doesn't matter to Iran what Trump says. What matters to Iran is what Trump and his regime do. And for Iran, the agreement that we were very close to implementing with the United States a couple of weeks ago won't change. Iran won't give any concessions. There has to be an end to the war in Lebanon. The regime has to retreat. There has to be an end to the slaughter in Gaza. The siege has to be lifted. Sanctions on Iran's oil and energy exports have to be waived for the duration of the agreement. And the United States has to give up the stolen Iranian assets that it holds. Then Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz and allow traffic to return to the numbers we saw before the war. That was what was agreed upon and that is what Iran will accept.
So Trump can say all he wants that he won't lift the siege until whenever — then there's no agreement. Or if he says he won't remove the sanctions until some condition is met, Iran will say okay, then we'll just continue with the current status quo, whether it's with violence or without. Iran believes it will outlast the United States no matter how difficult it becomes.
Iran's extended deterrence over Lebanon and the risk of further escalation
Glenn Diesen: Now I think the whole world is watching whether this rapid escalation will freeze or continue to spiral out of control. Essentially what Iran has done, as you say, is extend its deterrence to Lebanon. And I think this surprised many, because Iran responded not simply to an attack on itself but to an attack on Lebanon. If you follow the Israeli commentators in the media, they're making the point that this is unacceptable for Israel — that having a new situation where Iran's deterrence is extended to Lebanon must be categorically rejected by continuing to destroy Lebanon. So given this, plus Netanyahu essentially undermining Trump's authority, where do you think this is going? Because if the US decides it's going to enter the fight on Israel's side, the whole Yemen blockade of the Red Sea could be dramatically expanded — not simply against Israel but now against the US and possibly even Europe. I see that the EU is pushing sanctions on Iran and the French are in talks with Cyprus to set up some security arrangement there. It appears they want to play a bigger role without possibly considering where this war might be going.
Seyed Marandi: I don't think Iran takes anything the French do seriously. But the Israelis now know that the rules of the game have changed and Iran will not allow Lebanon to fall under any circumstances. So the longer this war lasts in Lebanon, the worse it is going to be for the regime, because Hezbollah keeps using ambushes and drones to severely hurt the regime. The regime wants to slaughter people and destroy cities and towns, and now they want to destroy the biggest prize of all — Beirut. And Iran says no, you can't touch Beirut. That hampers the regime's offensive capabilities, because on the battlefield they don't know how to deal with the resistance. The only thing they know is to slaughter ordinary people, and now Iran has blocked that, at least in the case of Beirut.
And not only has Iran responded, but Iran has responded in a very heavy-handed way. As I said in the beginning, the Israeli regime struck one building and apparently only killed two ordinary people on the streets — they didn't kill anyone from Hezbollah. But the Iranians fired 20 heavy missiles — 24 or 20, I'm not quite sure of the number — last night. Now as I said, the number of missiles fired is approaching 100. So it's not like they fired a couple and then Iran fires a couple. Iran hit them much harder. That sends a message and I think it will make the Israeli regime wary about the future of its operations across Lebanon, because Iran has shown that it is more than willing to get involved and that in this exchange it has the upper hand.
From my understanding, until just before our discussion, Iran has the upper hand in these exchanges and the Israelis haven't been able to do much, while the Iranians have been pretty effective in their strikes. The Iranians have also been more insistent on Gaza ever since the regime decided to attack Beirut a few days ago. So Iran is becoming more assertive, they've changed the rules of the game, and Yemen has entered the battlefield. For now it hasn't escalated too far — or very far, to be more precise — but what they've done clearly indicates that they have the will to go further.
I don't see a good ending for the United States or for the Israeli regime. I think we've already reached the end of Trump's presidency in a sense. What Netanyahu has done — not just through the war but even over the last 24 hours — by humiliating Trump and showing him to be a nobody, he's helped destroy what very little is left of Trump's credibility.
Iran's threats to Persian Gulf infrastructure and the broader picture
Glenn Diesen: Iran has allegedly made the point that they're not going to strike Israel now, that they've finished — unless of course Israel continues hitting Lebanon, in which case Iran will continue. This is the problem, because as the Lebanese prime minister says, Israel has bombed Lebanon about 3,500 times during the ceasefire, which kind of dilutes the whole concept of a ceasefire. Given that Israel will push hard against the idea of accepting an extended Iranian deterrence over Lebanon, it's unclear how this could be the end of it. It just seems like it's going to spiral out of control. But at least this is one area where Iran has now put down a powerful deterrent.
I was also wondering — do you see this being extended to the blockade? Because if Iran were to push back against that, it would be more of an Iran-US fight rather than an Iran-Israel fight. So far Iran has seemed more tolerant, or accepting, of the US blockade as a reality. Do you think this will be contested, or will Iran essentially accept this as well?
Seyed Marandi: That's a very important question. Let me put it this way. The rules of the game in Lebanon have changed. In order for there to be a ceasefire, the Israeli regime has to end the fighting and retreat back to where it was before the war. Lebanon and Hezbollah are never again going to accept the kind of ceasefire we had before the war — where during that ceasefire period, after the first ceasefire a year and a half ago or so, every day the Israelis would assassinate people and murder people in Lebanon. That's over. That's not going to happen from now on. Whenever there is a ceasefire, if the Israeli regime goes back to the border and then strikes Lebanon, Hezbollah will strike back. That era — where the Israelis would just every day kill one or two people — is finished.
As I said, Hezbollah and Iran together have changed the rules of the game. And then another thing happened today. This morning the Iranians said that Iran threatened the Israeli regime and its helpers. Then later in another statement, the Iranians said — because the Israelis struck an Iranian petrochemical plant — that Iran hit back and hit an Israeli plant. But then the Iranians said that if the regime continues, Iran is going to strike all of those energy installations in the Persian Gulf that are in any way affiliated with the United States or the Israeli regime. That means Iran will go further than just striking Tel Aviv or any other area inside Palestine. The Iranians could go and strike the Persian Gulf. That means the Iranians can go and strike the Americans too.
So the threats that the Iranians are making now go far beyond the Israeli regime. They're saying, "We're prepared to fully destroy all the critical infrastructure in the region if this continues. It doesn't matter if it's not the United States directly — if the Israeli regime does it, because these regimes are affiliated with the United States, which is assisting the Israeli regime, they're fair game." And the Iranians have been saying that anything that belongs to the United States — those ships in the siege — they're US ships. So now everything is on the table. The old previous assumptions have to be thrown out the window. There's no doubt that Iran is going to be much more assertive, and at the same time the global economy continues — as every time you and I speak — just that much closer to the cliff.
Glenn Diesen: It's interesting how this war is developing — the efforts to control the escalation. Each side seems to have a lot to lose and a lot to gain. It looks as though the US is not being able to assert escalation dominance. I think they did this quite well against the Russians — any Russian response is quite predictable, and they're able to escalate just enough without getting a proper retaliation. But against the Iranians, it appears to have become quite difficult. As you said, the willingness of Iran to retaliate disproportionately puts the US in a very difficult position if it just wants to keep this war on a low burner as opposed to escalating and going back to all-out war.
Iran's border operation and the broader network of proxy forces
Seyed Marandi: Just one small footnote that I think is interesting. Iran carried out an operation on the border with Pakistan and killed about five Tehrik-i-Taliban — these Wahhabi Salafi terrorists — and captured I think 19 others. They were planning to carry out suicide attacks and other attacks inside Iran during this period. It again shows that ISIS and al-Qaeda and these Tehrik-i-Taliban groups, whether in Syria or Iraq or in Pakistan or Iran, they never strike Israel — they strike Israel's enemies. This news just came out a couple of hours ago. I find it all fascinating that the Kurdish terrorists in northern Iraq, the Wahhabi terrorists on the border with Pakistan, and the people who tried to carry out an armed uprising in Iran earlier this year in January — all of them, with all their very differing backgrounds, Kurdish secular separatists, Wahhabi Salafi Tehrik-i-Taliban terrorists, and liberal armed terrorists who behead police officers and kill them by the hundreds — all of them are attacking simultaneously, and all of them are linked to the same source. The same source funds and supports a plurality of terrorist organizations with a plurality of ideologies.
Glenn Diesen: I remember when making the claim that the US was using al-Qaeda and ISIS as proxies with the Israelis — that was dismissed as a conspiracy theory. But I guess now that their politicians are shaking hands with Jolani and —
Seyed Marandi: — putting on perfume.
Glenn Diesen: Yeah, I think all of this is now very well established. Anyway, I hope you stay safe, and let's hope things get a little bit under control. Thanks again.
Seyed Marandi: Thank you for having me, Glenn. It's always a great pleasure.