Well over a decade I've been saying that if this war starts, there will be no oil leaving the Persian Gulf. It was clear, even though I'm not a military expert and even though I'm not in government and I'm definitely not a part of the military and I don't have that experience, it was clear what would happen if the United States engaged in a war of aggression against Iran. Trump seems to be and his advisors, they seem to be going through a kind of schizophrenia, schizophrenic approach to this problem that they themselves have created one part of brains or the their advisors brains they clearly see the logic in cutting their losses and just moving out because they don't have they realize that their stake in dealing with iran does not overlap with that of israel and they and they look at the global economy and they know that the global economy is on the brink of uh if they continue this war it could just sort of fall off the cliff So Trump, and of course Trump has midterms, he has to meet his people's, the promises that he's made to his people of lower gas prices, better life, which is not happening. So these, both these thought processes seem to be pulling Trump in different directions. There's another situation which could possibly unfold, which is the US would nominally walk away from this war. One of Iran's main problems with the United States has always been that the United States has been dishonest and that it never abides by its commitments. The JCPOA wasn't a good deal for Iran because the United States did not abide by its commitments. And back then, the Iranians made the mistake of carrying out all of their commitments and they had to wait upon Obama, and Obama did not deliver. Verbally, if the two people speak and they agree on something, then it's done. With the United States, that doesn't mean anything. Trump's signature doesn't mean anything. It's just a piece of paper, a worthless piece of paper to Iran. In the West, which they profess themselves to be more civilized than the rest of us, than Iranians or Pakistanis or Indians or the Chinese or the Russians, they always speak about how civilized they are. No one, no one has condemned Trump for constantly speaking about obliterating Iran, constantly speaking about bringing about the greatest Holocaust in human history. We want the Strait of Hormuz to be open. We make, you know, business in the Persian Gulf region benefits Iran just as as much as it benefits everyone else, despite all the sanctions and the hostility of the West against the Iranian people, simply because the Iranian people support the Palestinians and they oppose genocide, or they, you know, in the past they opposed apartheid in South Africa, they opposed the behavior of the United States towards Venezuela and Cuba These are all crimes of the Iranian people but which lead to sanctions But in any case trade and business in the Persian Gulf region benefits Iran So Iran would very much like to see an agreement. But the problem is Washington. Is Washington, and this is the question. I don't have an answer to that question that you raised. Is Washington prepared? Is Trump prepared to abide by his commitments within the framework of the MOU, which will include Gaza? Hello and welcome to this special conversation on The Wire. Today we'll talk about the US-Iran war. What is the latest situation in regard to the memorandum of understanding MOU, which was dead until last week, but it's become alive again. Iran and Oman are talking to each other and there is speculation that they'll soon read some firm agreement on on the management of the traffic in the state of Hormuz, which was a sticking point. So we'll go beyond that and we'll also look at how geopolitics of the Vestasian region is changing as the war continues in some sense. Negotiations are also taking place in some sense. There is hope of some agreement also on the horizon. So it's a very complex situation to break it all. We have again with us Professor Mohammed Said Marandi, who was with the, who on the wire channels some time ago, I think in late April when the first ceasefire was announced and he's back with us again. As we all know, he's a prominent voice coming out of Iran. He's a professor at Tehran University, a geopolitical analyst and also he was advisor to Iran's nuclear negotiation committee. And most importantly, I must tell this to the Indian audience, say this to the Indian audience that he was part of the first team, the delegation which flew down to Pakistan after the ceasefire and had the first round of negotiations didn last long 24 hours But for the first time after decades, the top leadership of US and Iran top officials, they came face to face. That was a very, very momentous event. And Mr. Morandi was there. he was he accompanied the delegation so so welcome to our show mr. Marandi good to have you with us again thank you very much for having me yeah so so I'll open it obviously with seeking your your comments on what is happening now on the state of Hormuz because the entire memorandum of understanding MOU, which was signed and sealed and which was praised by Trump, praised by JD Vance seemed to have been dead about a week ago when the US resorted to bombing of Iran for 13 days and it seemed that the MOU was dead but it's revived again. So, can you just give us a sense of what is going on because from the American side, we keep getting as you know versions which contradict each other every day or every second day, sometimes every hour. It's only from the Iran side that we are getting some consistent narratives. So, that's why having you is a very important, it's important for us. Please tell us what's going on here. When the MOU was signed, Iran knew that the United States was probably not going to implement the deal or the agreement. And it became quite clear literally hours afterwards. Americans uh did not uh tell the israeli regime to leave lebanon and to stop killing civilians uh that was article one of the deal and of course gaza and yemen were implied in the deal because it spoke of lebanon and other theaters but of course the israelis continue to kill kids every day in gaza And in the other articles of the deal, the United States also ignored their responsibilities. They refused to hand over Iran's stolen assets, which was an easy task to do if they were serious. They continued to threaten Iran and Iranian leaders. That was a violation of the deal. They expanded the sanctions regime a further violation They lifted the sanctions on Iranian oil exports but only for a few days and reversed that another violation and then ultimately what they did was that they set up a corridor in the strait of hormoz independent of iran and with a collaboration of the saudis the emiratis and qatar and that was of course in violation of article 5 because according to article 5 of the MOU, the Iranians would manage the Strait of Hormuz until normalization. And the Americans wanted that. Yes. And so the Americans wanted to undermine that. And the Iranians, of course, didn't react immediately. They kept warning the Americans. They kept warning the Saudis, the Emiratis, and the Qatari. But they wanted to undermine Iran. So ultimately, Iran, after multiple warnings, struck three ships that belonged to these countries. And the Americans restarted the war another violation and they imposed another blockade yet another violation so Iran more or less thought that this would happen but the reason why Iran signed up to the MOU was because more it was a pretty good deal and and also Iran had gathered tens of millions of barrels of oil and tankers that were stuck in the Persian Gulf and as soon as the MOU was signed and the siege was lifted, Iran sent those tens of millions of barrels of oil to the Asian markets for sale. So Iran was able to take advantage of that opportunity. But then after the war restarted, what Iran predicted would happen so far has happened, and that is the United States offensive against Iran would stall. It would not achieve anything. It would increase the global economic crisis. And Iran knew that the United States was running out of munitions, whereas the Iranians have been preparing themselves for this day, the day when the United States would finally attack, for decades. So Iran has lots of missiles and drones in its underground bases and in its factories they're producing more every day, far cheaper than U.S. weapon systems, which are extraordinarily expensive. So ultimately the United States stopped fighting. Of course, Iran didn't stop then. Iran carried out some heavy strikes against the United States, subsequently in Jordan and in Kuwait. But we are where we are now. Obviously, the smart thing for Trump to do would be to end this crisis, but because of the Israeli regime and Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby in the United States, who do not care about the global economic crisis, and because of his ego,
