Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday in an interview published in the country that Iran is in a "full-fledged war with America, Israel and Europe. They do not want our country to stand on its feet.” He warned that “if they attack us again, they will receive a harsher response. The unity of Iranian society will thwart all the enemy’s schemes.”
According to Pezeshkian, the West’s war against Iran, as he put it, “is more dangerous, more complex, and more difficult than the war with Iraq” in the 1980s, in which more than one million people were killed in the two countries.
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Benjamin Netanyahu, Masoud Pezeshkian, Donald Trump
(Photos: Nathan Howard/Reuters, Alex Brandon/AP, Alexander Nemenov/POOL/AFP)
Iran is expected to be one of the key issues discussed at the Netanyahu-Trump summit at Mar-a-Lago on Monday. Israel, according to military and security analyst Ron Ben-Yishai, is demanding an international agreement that would dismantle Iran’s military nuclear program, limit the development and deployment of missiles and drones, and prevent regional subversion through proxies. Such an agreement must include intrusive and continuous international oversight. At present, Iran is refusing any agreement of this kind.
Within Israel’s defense establishment and intelligence community, officials assess that Trump is seeking to avoid conflicts in the Middle East. His overarching strategic goal is to end regional confrontations so that he and his regional allies can focus on business.
As a result, intelligence officials fear a “bad deal” with Iran should Tehran agree to step off the fence and enter negotiations with the United States. Accordingly, the defense establishment is recommending that Netanyahu pursue two objectives at the Mar-a-Lago meeting: first, to prevent the signing of a bad agreement with Iran that would endanger Israel in the long term; and second, if a “good agreement” that ensures Israel’s and regional security is not achieved, to discuss with the president alternative ways of dealing with Iran.
Missile tests in Iran
Just this week, Iranian officials said that ballistic missile production is non-negotiable. “The purpose is self-defense and deterrence, and their production is not open to negotiation,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei.
In July, it was reported that the Iranian president was wounded in the leg in an Israeli strike during Operation Rising Lion. According to a report published by Iran’s Fars news agency, the strike occurred during a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council held in the lower floors of a building in western Tehran on June 16. Also present at the meeting were Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Judiciary Chief Mohseni Ejei and other senior officials, who were also lightly injured while evacuating the site.