[News] Iranian President forecasts a more intense round of conflict with Israel and the US - slams Washington's intransigence

[Anti-Imperialist News]

thegrayzone.com
<https://thegrayzone.com/2025/09/27/they-will-attack-max-blumenthal-irans-president/>
‘No doubt they will attack’: Max Blumenthal meets Iran’s President in NYC -
The Grayzone
Max Blumenthal
September 27, 2025
------------------------------

In a meeting with US antiwar figures, Iranian Pres. Masoud Pezeshkian
forecasted a more intense round of conflict with Israel and the US, and
slammed Washington’s intransigence.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived late to a September 24, 2025
meeting with American antiwar figures on the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly. He had come from a fateful tete-a-tete with Emmanuel Macron,
where he attempted to cajole his French counterpart into delaying
expiration of the JCPOA nuclear deal rather than instituting snapback
sanctions. Pezeshkian’s lobbying was fruitless; the Europeans had already
decided to ratchet up the economic war on Tehran. Meanwhile, Israel was
preparing for another attack on Iran with American support practically
guaranteed.

“No doubt they will attack Iran. And we will defend ourselves vigorously,”
Pezeshkian declared to his audience of about 25 antiwar journalists,
activists and think tank analysts gathered inside a conference hall in a
Midtown Manhattan hotel. A camouflaged bomb squad stood watch outside the
room, while grim-looking federal agents paced the halls.

The session consisted of two rounds of questioning and comments from
participants, with two rounds of responses from Pezeshkian. The format lent
itself to generalized answers, with some of the more pointed questions
seemingly lost in translation.

I opened the first round by referencing a speech
<https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/09/23/755594/ayatollah-khamenei-rejects-talks-with-u-s->
delivered a day before by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in
which he branded negotiations with the US as something “no honorable nation
would ever do, and no wise statesman would ever endorse.”

“Accepting negotiations under such threats would mean that the Islamic
Republic of Iran is susceptible to intimidation. If we were to negotiate
under such threats, it would mean that we tremble and surrender whenever
threatened,” Khamenei proclaimed.

I asked Pezeshkian if these statements were reflective of his
administration’s view, and if he believed that Trump had exploited the last
round of nuclear negotiations to lure Iran’s leadership into a false sense
of security that made it vulnerable to Israel’s unprovoked attack.

Following a battery of questions from other participants, the Iranian
president blasted Trump’s diplomatic tactics: “This was not negotiation, it
was dictation,” he said.

“Someone should have recorded what [Trump’s Middle East envoy] Steve
Witkoff said,” Pezeshkian continued. “He says one thing to us and all of
the sudden he returns to Washington and says something else. How can we
negotiate with someone like that?”

Pezeshkian referenced a book which he believed articulated the
fundamentally destructive nature of US foreign policy. Called “Making
Endless War,” <https://press.umich.edu/Books/M/Making-Endless-War2> the
volume is a compilation of essays analyzing the Vietnam war and
Arab-Israeli conflicts which argue that wars for resources and geopolitical
control have become a permanent component of post-war American diplomacy.

Seated beside Pezeshkian was his Foreign Minister, Abbas Aragchi. Visibly
tired from days of wrangling on snapback sanctions, Aragchi recalled how
Israel detonated an explosive inside the Natanz Nuclear Facility in 2018,
destroying some 4000 centrifuges. While Iran increased its enrichment
levels in retaliation, he emphasized that it continued the negotiations
which Israel had sought to sabotage.

Even today, Aragchi said, “We are willing to be flexible if we can get
appropriate action in return.”

Yet the Foreign Minister and his team would leave New York without any
concessions from the Europeans. Snapback sanctions were “a done deal,”
according to Macron.

For Iran’s leadership, the West’s intransigence had given Israel the green
light for another attack. But Pezeshkian noted that Iranian society was
stronger following the 12-day war last June. “The last attack brought
unity,” he insisted. “Iranians opposed regime change even if they disagreed
with the revolution. Even people who criticize us, those people supported
our military.”

Pointing to Israel’s brazen assault inside Qatar this September, where it
tried and failed to assassinate the entire Hamas negotiating team,
Pezeshkian predicted, “Cohesion will increase across the region because our
neighbors recognize that nobody is safe now.”

During Israel’s assault on Iran, the president narrowly escaped an attempt
on his life. “There are plans that if they take me out” when Israel attacks
again, “we have prepared five to six steps down the line.

Vowing that Islamic Republic was ready for all contingencies, Pezeshkian
sounded a confident note: “Iran is not Gaza. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is
not Syria. Iran is something different.”

Q
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