동아시아의 평화와 화해의 정치학 Scrapbook: Understanding Iran's overdue retaliation, w/Dr. Foad Izadi

2024-10-22

Understanding Iran's overdue retaliation, w/Dr. Foad Izadi

The Grayzone

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The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal interviews Dr. Foad Izadi, a professor of American Studies at the University of Tehran, on Iran's retaliation against Israel for its assassinations of key allies including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, and addresses widespread criticism that the response came too late. Izadi charts the next step in the confrontation, as Israel vows to escalate with US assistance.

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script

yesterday on October 1st Iran fired over 200 ballistic and Hypersonic missiles

into Israel in retaliation for Israel's Brazen assassination of Hezbollah

Secretary General Hassan nasala following the killing of over 2,000 Lebanese citizens and massive Terror

attacks using communication devices inside Lebanon as well as the

assassination of H Hamas polit Bureau Chief Ismael hania inside tan following

the inauguration of Iran's new president Iran's retaliation appeared to

penetrate the Iron Dome and targeted military facilities including a key

Israeli Air Force Base in the neev desert and Israel's mosad

headquarters Israel's leadership has vowed another assault on Iran including

attacks on Iranian oil rigs and more assassinations to better understand the

situation from inside Iran I turned to Dr fuad iadi Who is a PhD in American

studies and a professor at the University of tan so Dr fuad iadi what are your

thoughts on Iran's latest retaliation which was conducted after

the Assassin ass ination of Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan nasrala as well as the assassination of several

Palestinian resistance leaders and Iranian officials and how is the public

in Iran receiving this you know this uh started in July

with the assassination of uh Mr Han who was in tan for the inauguration

of Iran's new president he was an official guest of the Iranian

government and he was assassinated while he was in his uh room

resting this was quite embarrassing for Iran uh and uh there were a lot of calls

at that time for Iran to respond you know we have this article 51 under the

UN Charter if a country is attacked then that country can respond to that

attack uh Iranian officials in the last uh a few

days uh have been saying that the reason they delayed a response to to killing of Mr

Han was because American and European officials were telling Iranian leaders

that a peace deal was near that they

they were working on a ceasefire agreement and they asked Iranian leaders

not to do anything it seems that request was

answered positively Iran did not do anything and then you

had uh the attack in Lebanon I think we have more

than 2,000 people killed in the last few days in

Lebanon um a million people have been displaced because of Israeli

attacks then you had the assassination of Hassan nasah the head of heah General

Secretary and an Iranian General uh and you had Israelis wanting

to go and invade Lebanese

territory adding to all this uh

factors you had a huge public opinion pressure on the Iranian government to to

do something so last night I think the

decision was made to uh respond to the list I just

mentioned uh and you know I had to do a couple of interviews uh last night as I was going

to the TV stations people were on the streets celebrating waving Palestinian Flags

Lebanese Flags Iranian Flags uh having

sweets very much uh celebrating and

um of course people worry uh about the fact

that Mr nanu has shown has proven that he's

capable of uh overseeing a genocide uh and they have nuclear

weapons so these are some of the things that uh people are thinking about as we

speak so I I want to unpack that but first uh when you say people are

thinking about Netanyahu having nuclear weapons Israel has vowed a very harsh response uh they're talking about of

course assassinations attacks on Iranian infrastructure oil rigs and so

on uh are Iranians prepared for the and not just the

military but our average Iranians prepared for Israel to start doing to

Iranian cities what it has been doing in Beirut for

example answer is no you know I was on um television station Turkish station

trt last night and the anchor asked me are people going into

bunkers um I said you know people are out celebrating they're not going to the

Bonkers uh so the answer is no of course you know Iran experienced

eight years of war in the 1980s

U the saddam's government with the help of the United States and European

countries and the money of a number of Arab states that decided to attack

Iran uh so there is this um culture of resistance

in Iran uh of course the younger people did not see that war but their parents

did and um I don't think you have been to tan if you if you come

here the streets in tan and other cities are named

after the soldiers that were killed in Iran Iraq war so although this is about

30 years ago um this culture of resistance

against um foreign power that is attacking the country is part of the

Iranian psyche and you know in in Shia Islam the

issue of martm is very much highlighted and the majority of people

in Iran are Shia Muslims um so the culture on these issues is

somewhat different the hope that I think Iranian government leaders

have is that the Israelis Banu

especially realizes that Iran has a lot of ballistic

missiles um the Iron Dome last night U was more like a glass Dome it

really didn't didn't work U so the hope I think that Iranian

leaders have is for nanyu not to do the things you just mentioned because that

would the start of war Iranian leaders have said that they they're

done uh and they don't want to do this again tonight and they hope that the other side realizes that

continuing this war continuing the genocide continuing their attacks in Lebanon is not a good idea

you know we had a UN resolution a few months ago asking Israel to have a

ceasefire even the United States voted for that so if nanyu had accepted

that resolution then we would not be talking

about this issue tonight and what Iran has vowed that if Israel

does respond it will escalate and it will attack the oil facilities off the

UAE and Saudi Arabia and the world economy will suffer

a massive blow what does Iran's military have the capacity to do um I think many

people many observers were surprised to see Iran's Hypersonic missiles in AC ction and that they demonstrated the

ability to penetrate the Iron Dome but what are to your knowledge Iran's military capabilities and can it

actually confront Israel and all of its NATO

patrons you know I don't think at least at this stage um Iran will attack Saudi

Arabia or UAE I think if Israel is attack Iran Iran will repeat what happened last

night with a larger scale I think Iran has used about 10 or

15% of its capabilities not the Stock B the Stock B

is quite huge but the ability that was used was I think about

10 or 15% um and I think you have seen that Iranian leaders

have said that if Israel is attack infrastructure in Iran they would attack

Israeli infrastructure last night um the targets were military bases

the Mad headquarters there was a conation of

Tanks near aazza and that was attacked tanks that

were engaging in genocide there were some military bases in uh at

at the Lebanese border that was attacked so Iran focused on military

bases you know I've been doing some interviews today and people have been

asking me you know we haven't seen any damage in Tel

Aviv and my reply was

Iran does not consider nanyu to be an example Iran was not interested in

attacking wom and children in Tel Aviv that's why there are no casualties in

the city the targets were at military bases and Israelis don't allow cameras at

military bases or mad headquarter right but right I think the

pictures are quite telling we have you know we see dozens of ballistic missiles

Landing and these are huge huge missiles they cause

damage so the hope that I think Iranian leaders had was that Israel realized

this capacity and would stop and not do anything more and you mentioned Dr isad

that there was a comment actually I witnessed this comment at a meeting on

the sidelines of the UN General Assembly by Iran's

recently inaugurated president masud pesan uh with Javad zarif the vice

president of strategic Affairs seated beside him that they essentially trusted

the Americans after the assassination of Hamas poit Bureau leader Ismael hania in

his hotel room in tan right after peskin's inauguration that the US would

find a way of finalizing a ceasefire Within about a week and that is why Iran

held off on retaliating against Israel and establishing some

level of deterrence back in July in your view was that a mistake and

how do Iranians view that I know there were protests after peskin's comments

came to light which I think helped create pressure for this current retaliation but in your view was it a

mistake to trust the Americans and uh who's actually making the decisions

here you know you're right um after the

assassination of s Hassan Nas in Lebanon there were a lot of people who

were saying that if you had telling the government that if you had responded to

the assassination of is hania then this second

assassination would have materialized and um I I don't know you

know Israelis are have been killing U Palestinian leaders Lebanese

leaders uh for the last 76 years this is nothing

new so I don't know the answer to that question

uh but I think uh Dr Z you know Mr pesan

is a heart surgeon so he's learning how to become a

president but Dr zarif has been around international issues for many

decades and I don't think he actually believed the Americans I hope

not but you know Iran did not want to

engage Israel militarily Iran did not want to do what Iran did last night and yes one

reason that operation last night happened was

because of public opinion pressure Iran you know the new

government in Iran Pan's Administration uh wants to uh do other

things work under economy um you know he has had

campaign uh promises he wants to fulfill they're interested in finding someone in

the White House who is interested in returning to the nuclear agreement um they're concerned about

these issues they they don't they don't want to be fighting Israelis because you

know the people who are running Israel are genocidal but uh

I think the reason last night happened was that there was a consensus among

uh Iranian leaders that if they don't do anything

Israelis will be emboldened and they may attack Iran again at a larger

scale so this was a measure of creating deterrence the hope that they had was to

tell the Israelis that this is this type of attacks would not be tolerated you

know in Iran we have this National Security Council um

10 members five come from the executive branch including the president the

foreign minister people who deal with these issues we have the head of the Judiciary

the head of the legislative branch some military leaders and and this the you know type

of decisions that was made last night is made in that National Security

Council and and Israel did not join in

the assassination of Major General kasum solomani uh some suspect because it was

afraid of Iran's response uh be much harder for Iran to retaliate directly

against the US than Iran except for I guess hitting the

al-asad American al-assad Military Base in Iraq um what do you think of the view

that Iran did not strike back hard enough after soloman's killing uh and that this has

encouraged Israel to go on this spree of assassinations and further killings

including smuggling a uh machine gun into Iran to kill an Iranian military

side scientist uh has Iran really demonstrated deterrence at this

point you know you're you're right because

um we do know this about Israeli leaders that they don't have any ethical

standards so in they engage in this type of terrorism if there is no pain or if the

pain is can be tolerated and I think you're right they

looked at Iran's response to General Sol man's assassination and they they thought this

is this could be tolerated and they started repeating that style in in in

different places and uh so that's one issue that people talk about in in Iran the

reason the Iranian response to General suan is uh

assassination in that manner was that Iran was not interested in a war Iran is not interested in a war now Iran could

do a lot more damage to anol Assad that military base but as you know

Iran notified the Iraqi government uh knowing that the Iraqi

government would tell the American government the US government and you know Iran has this

the missiles can hit their targets quite accurately

and Iran made sure that the sleeping areas you know where people are

concentrated they made sure that those buildings were not were not hit because they did not want to create serious

casualties um this has been the policy of Iran

uh because government leaders here generally don't want to have a war under

watch and then there are some people who argue that if your response

is not strong enough that would create war that would embolden the other side

and they would engage in activities that would lead to a major war so I think

think we just have to wait and see which opinion is more accurate Iran notified Russia ahead of

time of its retaliation against Israel and it was around this time that the Russian Prime

Minister mik mishustin was in Iran to meet with president

pesan is Russia playing any role in deterring these attacks and just the

overall project of regime change and destabilization in

Iran um and where do the other brics nations uh fall into the equation in

potentially playing a role as a buffer against all of this military pressure

and economic Warfare against Iran you know you relations with Russia

is good um there's this bricks Summit in Russia in the next few days Dr pesan

is going there they're going to sign a 20-year agreement between Iran and

Russia on different topics Iran signed a

25y year agreement with China A couple of years ago uh you know the Middle East West

Asia has a lot of oil a lot of gas

China gets about 55 60% of its energy

from this part of the world and uh I think Chinese leaders

realize that having good relations with Iran is in their National interest because the other countries the

Persian Gulf countries the kingdoms are more or less us client states so they

are they can they could be pered by the United States whenever us wants to use that

leverage Iran is not us client State and I think Chinese

leaders realize that um have been buying oil from

Iran under us sanctions uh similar thing is through

with Russia you know after uh the sanctions on Russia uh

Iran was a source of goods that Russians

normally imported but they could not import those goods from Europe so Iran provided help in that

area Iran and Russia are actually neighbors um

so uh having good relations but Russia has been a project of Iran dating

back many many years and the relations are are good we have a

lot of visits from Russian officials the

Prime Minister was here as you said a few days ago uh Russia and China have been helping Iran

at the UN Security Council you know just a couple of hours

ago there was a security council meeting on what's going on in

Lebanon and if it was to if the us could do this they would have

a UN resolution against Iran every other day and the reason they don't have that

is because they realize that Russia and China are going to veto right so so the relations are good

they're improving it's it's beneficial for uh

both sides uh and uh you know we are moving towards a new world or New World

Order you know that we moving towards a multipolar order bricks is going

to play an important role in the world's future Iran became a

bricks member last year and I think that is going to help Iran resist sanctions that are coming

from the United States Israel suffered uh some serious

losses today during its initial invasion of Southern Lebanon uh kind of

confirming one of its we major weaknesses but leading up to that there were some high-profile tactical

successes for the Israeli military you know there was the the pager terror

attack which left thousands maimed um and you know I along with many others

was sort of mystified that hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan

nasala would gather with other highlevel commanders including a leader of Iran's

KS force in a known base uh or known bunker uh where they were then

assassinated uh so I think there are a lot of questions and I wonder what your view is on this and what Iranian media

has been saying uh did Hezbollah seriously miscalculate

and believe that Israel would abide by the laws of war and in the wake of the

killing of kasum solaman uh nasella clearly took on a

more um meaningful role as an advisor to Iran a kind of military and strategic

advisor and did he become too conservative in deterring Israel what

are your thoughts you know the

one thing Israelis know how to do is Terrorism and they're very good at

it and they use tactics that that are

new so for example the Iranian scientists that have been assassinated

by the Israelis um Israelis did not use the same tactic twice so they they come up

with a new tactic to kill the new person so I think hisbah

underestimated the ability of Israelis to engage in new forms of terrorism this

is the first time in in history that that pages are used

to kill people in that manner or main

people um so this was this was a

mistake uh but you know Hezbollah was created after

the 1982 Lebanon invasion in fact hisbah was created to uh push Israel out of

Lebanese territory they are a resistance

movement it's not an army they don't have an Air Force they don't have a

Navy people in the80s uh people people like

San young young people that wanted to free their land from foreign

occupation uh so in 1982 Israelis occupied Lebanon and in 1985

Hezbollah started gura movement against the

occupation it took them 15 years uh to

push the occupation Force out of lebanes territory so that until

2000 so they have had successes they have had failures this is

an ongoing war in in Wars you he always don't win sometimes you win sometimes

you lose they lost they have been losing in in the last few days today

they had a success in terms of making sure that the invading forces would not come in

easily and since they have been around for about four

decades they are also good at some things so the organization is capable of

replacing lost leaders uh and this is what they have

done you know just a few days after the assassination of their Secretary General

a few days after the uh pager and walkie-talkie uh

terrorism um they have managed to make sure that Israelis cannot come into

Lebanon this is you know Israel is a full

army they have all the resources that they want from the United States

uh and other Western governments and for a

militia to be able to resist not only the Israeli Army but the

whole Western Civilization Army it's very

amazing so at the same time that we criticize heah for not being more

careful we should remember that they have done amazing things in the last number of decades defending their land

defending their their people with limited very limited resources you know it's it's easy to run

an army when you have a blank blank check from Joe Biden not not a difficult

thing to do but running a resistance movement with all the sanctions and all

the pressures limited resources that's not that's not easy you know Israelis

are good at getting F35 F15 fighter jets from the United States

and bombing people that don't have air defense systems but when they're actually on the

ground uh then they don't do so well

so overall I think um you know s Hassan n became

hisbah Secretary General uh after the previous Secretary

General was assassinated by the Israelis and he did a good job during

his tenure um I think that culture of resistance that is present in Lebanon as

well would lead this organization to continue functioning you know more than a million

people have been displaced in the last two weeks in Lebanon and there are tens of thousands of young

people young men that have been uprooted their houses

have been bombed they don't have their previous jobs they had

to leave their cities and towns and they could be recruited by

heah they were not members of Hezbollah so what the Israelis have

done it's a it's it's a success to be able to kill s Hassan n but

they're engaging in activities that would produce people

like him in a much larger scale and that's that's not a good

idea so I I think you know given the fact that we shouldn't have an apartheid

estate in 21st century sooner or later we should be

moving towards a one state solution in Palestine and if we manage to do

that then you know the one you're familiar with the concept people get a

vote equal vote the same way people in South Africa hide it and if if

Palestinians can vote then you would not have Natan as the Prime

Minister we have data showing that the majority of people who live in historic

Palestine are actually Palestinians and uh you may say that Israelis would

will not accept that but same thing goes through with

South African aparte leaders but if there is enough internal pressure and

outside external pressure I think sooner or later that is going to be the Democratic

solution to to the problem and if that happens then you're

not going to have a army going over the Lebanese border trying to

occupy other people's land the question will be resolved and I think sooner or

later we have we are moving towards that

direction and we heard so much talk this week from American and Israeli officials

after the perceived Israeli successes against hisa of a opportunity to build a

new Middle East this was the rationale of members of the bid Administration for

greenlighting Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon this was uh this language

hearkens back to former Secretary of State condalisa Rice's uh phrase the birth pangs of a

new Middle East used to justify us support for Israel's 2006 assault on

Lebanon and I think it's become clear what she meant through the Abraham Accords pushed by President Donald

Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner sort of a normalization between Israel and the

wealthy Gulf Sunni monarchies um this is something

obviously Palestinians oppose because it takes the Palestinian question and

throws it in the historical dust bin but what is the Iranian view on Israeli

Saudi UAE normalization what would it mean for Iran if this came to bear and this kind

of uh Sunni Israeli Crescent were

Consolidated you know the idea was to have uh Israeli

technology with this uh money Petro

dollars that's coming from Persian Gulf States uh

creating a network that would focus on Iran the

idea was to have Israel as the leader of these Arab

countries to lead them well to lead them towards confrontation with with

Iran and it's it's unfortunate

that these clients at States in in this part of the world um in instead of using

their wealth to improve the well-being of their own people or helping the Palestinian

cause uh they were under way to accept that setup

this was a push by the United States under Abraham Accords during the Biden

Administration um the idea was continued until October 7th happened

it's more difficult now for Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel given

the genocide of the last year I think

overall um the people of this part of the

world uh can

tolerate a genocidal regime next to dictators

leading this region towards a continuous

confrontation with with Iran um you know pal Ians are

sunnis and the fact that Iran has been championing the

Palestinian cause uh with a lot of uh pressure on

Iran you know Americans for decades have told Iranian leaders that if you forget

about the Palestinian cause all the sanctions would go away sanctions on Iran came comes from US Congress US

Congress is fully influenced by the Israeli Lobby

and if there is no problem between Iran and Israel

then Israeli Lobby would not engage in this type of anti-iran

activities uh so a lot of people wonder why Iran is not giving up on the

Palestinian cause given the fact that it's a experiencing a lot of pressure

both economic and now you know we are nearing a war in this in this part of the

world and the answer I think is that Iranians realize that you cannot live

peacefully in a neighborhood with with

Israel because of the nature of the state the because of the terrorism that

has been going on for 76 years because if Israelis can uh manage

to occupy Palestinian lands uh then they would want to control the

whole region and this is what Iran experienced during the Sha

Iran was controlled by the United States and Israel until the 1979 Revolution

so that revolutionary Spirit of Iran has not allowed the

country to follow dictates from Washington and

accept a setup that may be beneficial to Iran in the short term but in the long

term uh would turn Iran into another client state of the United States

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