In this special broadcast marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Geopolitical Analyst Ehsan Safarnejad joins us to discuss how the event has reshaped Iran’s national security, impacted global geopolitics, and what the future holds for peace in the Middle East. Ehsan offers insights into Iran’s current situation, talks about Iran's commitment towards its allies, the role of global powers, and much more amid ongoing conflict.
#GazaAnniversary #MiddleEastConflict #IsraelSecurity #Geopolitics #HamasAttack #GlobalDiplomacy #NationalSecurity #MiddleEastPeace #USForeignPolicy #DefenseStrategy #InternationalNews #InternationalRelation #War #WorldWar3 #OneIndia #OneIndiaNews
~HT.178~ED.155~GR.344~
#GazaAnniversary #MiddleEastConflict #IsraelSecurity #Geopolitics #HamasAttack #GlobalDiplomacy #NationalSecurity #MiddleEastPeace #USForeignPolicy #DefenseStrategy #InternationalNews #InternationalRelation #War #WorldWar3 #OneIndia #OneIndiaNews
~HT.178~ED.155~GR.344~
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome to this special broadcast. It's been one year of the Israel attack and
00:04things have changed ever since. Today we have with us Ehsan Safarnejad, Iranian geopolitical
00:10analyst from Tehran, Iran, talking to us on the same topic. Welcome, Ehsan. Welcome to
00:16One India. How are you?
00:18Quite well. Thanks for inviting me to your show.
00:21Ehsan, my first question to you would be, you know, given the escalating tension, do
00:26you think Iran is prepared to, like, you know, directly enter the conflict in Lebanon?
00:33Iran is not really seeking to increase the tension in the region. Obviously, this is
00:40our region. We are indigenous to this place. Our prime minister isn't some guy whose last
00:47name is Malkovsky and then change it to Netanyahu. We are indigenous to this region and we prioritise
00:55peace and stability throughout the region as our number one priority. So, Iran is not
01:01really keen on intervening in the conflict, but circumstances might change. The aggression
01:10of the Israeli regime is just so mind-blowing to the extent that, you know, they are constantly
01:21bombing and other countries, you know, they have went on a rampage in Gaza. You know,
01:29it was at first the city of Gaza in the Gaza Strip, then they went to Rafa, then they bombed
01:35Yemen, then, you know, they were bombing Hezbollah in Lebanon, southern parts of Lebanon. And,
01:43you know, all throughout this time, they were constantly bombing Syria. So, at some point,
01:50the adventurism of this tyrannical regime, this ethno-supremacist regime, becomes somewhat hard
01:58to ignore. At the moment that they decide to directly attack Iran, I think it becomes
02:06inevitable for Iran to respond. At that point in time, I think that Iran will be ready to defend
02:15its territorial integrity and to protect its interests throughout the region.
02:21Okay. Since you mentioned Hezbollah, there are reports, you know, of instability with
02:28Hezbollah's leadership, especially like, you know, after the targeted killing of their leaders by
02:34the Israeli forces. So, tell me something, has the strength of the resistance weakened in Iran
02:41or what does this mean, like, in a broader context, if we talk about the axis of resistance?
02:47Well, General Soleimani, as one of the main commanders of the axis of resistance,
02:52the guy who hammered ISIS like no one did before him or has done ever since. He commanded something
03:01like 70 operations in Syria and 20-something in Iraq. So, I mean, this was a very integral
03:09person in the axis of resistance. He has this quote, he says, the opportunity that exists in
03:17what we consider as threats are even bigger than the circumstances which were considered as
03:26opportunity, right? So, you know, opportunities lie, you know, at every corner. And this is
03:34something that the axis of resistance is very experienced in basically utilising.
03:42You know, we are talking about Hezbollah. Let's remember how Hezbollah was born. Hezbollah was
03:49born out of a conflict. And then all throughout its lifetime, it was dealing with some sort of
03:57challenge, the identity of the group, the organisation has emerged, or has defined itself,
04:07the core value of this organisation has been defined around this threat of Israeli aggression
04:16towards Lebanon. So, this is not something that they weren't used to. Back then, when in its
04:25infancy, Hezbollah lost its leader, Sayyid Abbas Mousavi. And then after that, a guy came to power
04:36in Hezbollah called Subhi At-Tufayli. Now, many analysts don't really talk about him.
04:44They just complete that chapter in the history. And they say that Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah was the
04:50second Secretary General of Hezbollah. They completely ignore this guy. But the truth was,
04:57for a time, Hezbollah had a leader who was, in a way, fundamentally against the core values of
05:07Hezbollah. Now, if you ask me, which case is worse, having no leader or having a leader who is
05:15very keen on, you know, sabotaging your movement, I would choose not having a leader and have,
05:21you know, people just having a council and that council, you know, proceeding to determine the
05:31actions and the policies of the group. Hezbollah has a very robust structure. It was precisely due
05:39to the fact that it has five different councils in different areas. And the fact that it sort of
05:47has democracy within itself, within its members. Due to these reasons, Hezbollah doesn't face
05:57challenges the way that people think it would. And I can assure you that although the blow that
06:05has been dealt to them has been substantial, but it is not in any way, shape or form fatal to the
06:15fate of the resistance group. Okay, so tell me, you know, like there are, we have seen that there's
06:25a lack of unified support from Muslim nations also, like for the Palestinian cause in this
06:31conflict. So why do you think many Muslim majority countries have not actively backed
06:36Palestine? And what does this signal for the, you know, region's geopolitical alliance?
06:44Well, one reason was due to the fact that all of this situation that we are seeing
06:51was long in the making. Let's remember when General Wesley Clark basically blew the whistle
06:59on this sort of memorandum in Pentagon that the United States plans to attack
07:06seven countries in five years or six years, something like that. It was Yemen, Iraq, Sudan,
07:14Syria, and, you know, finally finish up with Iraq. So all the countries that had significant power
07:23in order to oppose the killing, the murder, the genocide in Gaza by the Israeli regime,
07:31all of them have been first neutralized by United States. And now these countries don't really have
07:39that power, because they have, they are before long before this happens, they have been neutralized.
07:47The other Arab countries in the region, the countries that are located around the Persian
07:56Gulf, they're mostly busy in what I call daydreaming. You know, you have these,
08:06Ben Salman's vision of 2030, 2050 or something. And when you read those proposals for the future
08:15of Saudi Arabia, you see that they don't make sense at any level. Like these are just wishful
08:22thinking of a leader who wants to be something more than what he is, which is just a puppet of
08:29United States. He's just a pawn in this like big chessboard that, you know, big players like Russia,
08:37China, United States, and like a regional country like Iran plays, they just move from one side to
08:46the other side. Saudi Arabia spent a lot of money, a lot of money on destabilizing Yemen,
08:55which would further the cause of United States. And, you know, the Israeli regime,
09:01why did they do that? Because of the ambition of its leader, because of the fact that
09:05these countries owe their security to United States. They have basically outsourced
09:12the security to the countries that are outside of this region, to the foreign entities in
09:18the region. And that's why they have to follow their plan. They have to basically
09:25procure, basically manufacture the doctrine, create their doctrine around this question,
09:33how they can be useful to Americans so that the Americans won't abandon.
09:40Okay, when you do that, when you outsource your security, it becomes really hard for you to have an
09:46independent, original defense doctrine, and foreign policy, which is unfortunately something
09:53that has been happening in Middle East and something that has happened to the countries
10:00in region. Another reason is that the leaders who are in charge of these countries are,
10:08they haven't been elected. They are inheriting the government through, you know,
10:18through this royal blood. And, you know, they don't really have the support of their own people,
10:24so they have to rely elsewhere. These are the main two reasons why the countries in the region,
10:30unfortunately, have been procrastinating, and in some instances, have been going against the
10:38benefits of the Palestinian people in general. You're saying that it is because of the
10:44outsourcing of the security and the defense from the, let's say, bigger players like US,
10:51and not due to the Shia-Sunni divide, because there are speculations about the same.
10:59Well, look, I can tell you that, you know, religion can fool a lot of people who don't
11:06know the politics. But when talking about politics, the leaders don't really talk about
11:12religion that much. They talk about the corridors, natural resources, the security of their country,
11:19their borders, their access to the open sea. You know, these are the things that they talk about.
11:30Religion is one aspect of it. I'm not going to completely deny this facet of this conflict that
11:40is a secretarian matter. But considering how people have been supporting one another,
11:48I would say that this is sort of like a project, rather than inherent and innate
11:55difference between two fractions of the society in the Middle East, if we consider the entirety
12:02of the Middle East as a community. You know, there isn't that difference between the people.
12:09And you could see that clearly manifest itself and show itself when people, more specifically,
12:17the Sunni Arabs in the region, cheering on when they saw the Iranian ballistic missiles
12:24over the skies of the occupied Palestine. So that's not as big of an issue as people
12:31make it to be. And I have seen weird things. So there are these groups that are agent provocateurs,
12:40both in the Shia community and in the Sunni community. But funnily enough, despite the fact
12:46that, for example, those agent provocateurs in the Sunni community insult the high figures of
12:55the Shia community, and the Shia community does it, I'm referring to those agent provocateurs,
13:02not the entirety of the community, do the same thing to the Sunnis. But these two groups somehow
13:10are best friends. It doesn't make sense whatsoever if you want to look at it as genuine
13:18hatred and resentment towards the other side. Well, if you hate the other side so much,
13:23then why is it that you are buddy-buddy with this other guy who insults the high figures
13:29of your own sect? So it is clearly a plan. There is money involved. And, you know, religion has
13:38been weaponized by the intelligence communities of the Western countries in order to sow distrust
13:46and, you know, the seed of difference, resentment between the people in the region,
13:51between the people of the region. But fortunately, you know, obviously what is happening in,
14:00what has happened in Gaza has been very traumatic and tragic. But, I mean, if you want to look at
14:08for some silver lining in this entire tragic scenario is the fact that people are finally
14:15waking up to the truth and the reality of the circumstances that they have been dealing with
14:24by coming together, by seeing the videos of Sunni scholars going viral on social media,
14:30thanking the Shia community for the help that they have provided their Sunni brothers in Palestine
14:39and more specifically in Gaza, because in their logic, Yemenis, the Iranians, the Iraqis,
14:47the Lebanese, these people who are fighting the Zionist entity and supporting the Palestinian
14:55cause, they are all, they have all one thing in common, and that's the fact that they are Shias.
15:02So, it means that the Shias are not really invested in, you know, sort of throwing the gas
15:12into this fire of secretarianism. They're more interested in unity, in helping their brothers,
15:20helping the oppressed people of Palestine. Okay, okay. Quite understood. Tell me something
15:32that, you know, as an average Iranian person, you know, who's living in Iran, what does,
15:41for you, is to think of this war? Like, you know, how does or what does an average Iranian think
15:48of this ongoing war between the two countries?
15:53Well, you know, the people are making jokes, right? So, this is one thing that Iranians do.
16:01They have this very strong sense of humor, and from time to time, they nag, they complain.
16:09But I would say that in everyday life, you see people doing exactly what they were doing before.
16:16I mean, Iran is not the occupied Palestine. Iranians are not living in the same fear that
16:22the Israelis are living in. You know, we don't go to the bunkers. We don't queue up
16:29behind the closed doors of the big supermarkets trying to hoard stuff and prepare store food
16:39in fear of an imminent Israeli attack. You know, everyday Iranians living their own,
16:46their normal life, and, you know, sometimes they make jokes. Sometimes they may say things,
16:54oh, I mean, God forbid that Israel attack us, but it's all in passing voice, and there is not really
17:03genuine fear behind what they say. Again, the supermarkets are full of food. There is no
17:12shortage of anything. The economy is bad right now. So, I mean, in that aspect, there is not
17:20much to say, but, you know, people are doing what they were doing before the October 7th,
17:26before, like, before 13 months ago. Everything is business as usual in Iran.
17:35So, you're saying things are pretty much as they were before, like a year ago in Iran,
17:41and nothing much has changed between this war, right?
17:46Yes. Okay, so tell me something. This is not what I am saying, but it is something that
17:52Netanyahu said, that is Hezbollah a proxy of Iran? What do you have to say on this?
18:03Look, there is this group in Lebanon. It's called Qadhat al-Libnani, and they have a strong
18:10relationship with the United States and the countries of the Western Hemisphere,
18:17the NATO countries in general. When you compare the capabilities of Qadhat al-Libnani with Hezbollah,
18:26you see the difference and how apparent it is. Hezbollah currently manufactures drones
18:37that Russia had to pay money in order to purchase. They are purchasing it from within the Lebanese
18:46border because Iran was kind enough to transfer technology to Hezbollah. Now, this is something
18:53that you do with your allies, with your strategic allies. It goes to show you that the relationship
18:59between Iran and Hezbollah, despite the fact that it's not a state actor, it's an organization,
19:08that bond is very strong, right? Today, if you talk about the capabilities that Hezbollah has,
19:16the help that they have received from Iran. For example, I think it was two years ago that
19:23Lebanon was dealing with a fuel shortage. Considering the fact that almost every Lebanese
19:30has to rely on generators, power generators, in their home in order to have electricity,
19:39because the government doesn't have powerful power plants in order to procure people with
19:44electricity that they need, they have to rely on fuel and they have to do it in their own home.
19:51Iran agreed to send fuel to Lebanon, basically receiving their money, which was devaluated at
20:00that time to hell and back, and was in a way worthless. So, these are the things that you do
20:08with your allies. What really blows my mind is the fact that the countries that have went against
20:17their own security interests, the countries that have sold the interests of their own people,
20:24are being called by the United States as a Western ally. Meanwhile, a genuine partnership
20:32that has resulted in fruitful, tangible outcomes, resulted in things that we can calculate, we can
20:41see, we can measure. Those relationships have been described by the Western communities, by Western
20:50media, with words that are derogatory. They call the Iranian allies in the region proxies. In Iran,
20:59if the police come out in the streets, the Western media calls it a police state.
21:07But if the same thing happens in the United States, then it's law and order. You can't have disorder
21:14in the United States. You can't have chaos. When they torture people, they call it enhanced
21:20interrogation techniques. The rich people inside Russia and China are called oligarchs. In the United
21:28States, despite the fact that their wealth is sometimes bigger than the entire GDP of some
21:35countries, they are being called entrepreneurs. So when you see this trend, this is not
21:42just the fact that they call the Hezbollah organization a proxy for Iran. This is actually
21:52a bigger trend, which is the weaponization of language by the Western media. There is no
21:58journalist in Western societies. I'm referring to mainstream media. There are mostly, I mean, there
22:05is this sort of play on words in Iran. Most of the journalists in the Western hemisphere,
22:15we call them Sarbaz Khabar Nagar. Khabar Nagar means journalist press. We call them press
22:22soldiers, soldiers of the press. Because that's what they do. They go and use behind every word.
22:30There is an apparent and clear objective in order to demonize the independent countries,
22:37the emerging countries, the countries that are challenging the unilateralism by the United States
22:44and trying to usher in a new age of multi-polarity. All of them are being dehumanized
22:53and antagonized by these Western, supposed journalists, stenographers for power.
23:00And it's just a matter of time before they decide that they don't like your country
23:05and come after you. And you will then hear them talk about your country in the most derogatory,
23:13hateful manner, which you would have previously thought it to be impossible.
23:19We don't really take these people seriously. We don't take this rhetoric seriously. Everybody in
23:25Iran and Lebanon understand that this is a bilateral relationship. We help them, they help
23:33us. We are pursuing common goals. In some areas, we have difference of opinion. For example, Hamas
23:42in Syria, the Iranians, the Hezbollah organization and Hamas, we had different viewpoints on what
23:51should happen. But funnily enough, again, there is zero disagreement between the countries of NATO
24:00when it comes to Ukraine. How odd. We are a vassal state. We are proxies of one another.
24:06We are selling the interests of our own people for the sake of the others, supposedly,
24:12how it is described by the Western outlets. But then we have disagreements within ourselves.
24:20A healthy amount of disagreement is integral to having an organization that functions
24:27the way that it is supposed to. But funnily enough, there is zero disagreement between
24:32the NATO countries. And somehow they are considered an alliance rather than all of them
24:38being proxies of the United States. Even if that means your pipeline, Nord Stream 1 and 2,
24:49being blown up by the United States, even then, Germany is called a US ally, not a US proxy.
24:58Sure. So, because we are running short on time, I'll ask you one last question,
25:06which is, Iran was criticized for delayed attacks earlier. So, has Iran now made up their mind
25:16about this whole war situation?
25:19War situation?
25:23I mean, the Iranian leader performed the Friday prayer after the Iranian attack on Israel.
25:31And in that prayer, he gave a lecture, as it is customary in performing the Friday prayers
25:40in the Islamic culture. He said, we are not really in a hurry. And we are not in the business
25:56of procrastination either. Neither procrastination, neither being in a state of hurry. We act when we
26:06deem an opportune time to act. And this has been one key part of the Iranian foreign policy,
26:16one part of the Iranian security doctrine that has always been integral to the whole
26:25modus operandi by which Iran defends and protects its territorial integrity. So, I would say that
26:34Iran will continue the way that it was, continue this sort of framework under which it was
26:43pursuing its objective of helping the Palestinian people.
26:48There was, I told this on another show somewhere else, you know, there was this agreement, this
26:56between the Russian Federation and the Israeli regime that, you know, because the Russians are
27:05in Syria, because of the port that they own, the port in Tartus, the naval port that they have,
27:13the agreement was that the Russians would prevent Iranians from, you know, venturing deep into the
27:21southern parts of Syria, which is adjacent to the occupied Palestine, aka Israel.
27:30There was that agreement between the two sides. What Iranians simply did was to wear the uniform
27:36of the Syrian Arab army, the Syrian government's army, and the Iranian generals can be seen in
27:46multiple pictures wearing the Syrian Arab army uniform. So, it is not the fact that Iran is not
27:52involved, but the fact that Iran is not really in the business of going around and advertising
28:01everything that it is doing. Even in the assassination of Secretary General of Hezbollah,
28:08there was this figure that was completely absent in the western media, and that was General
28:16Abbas Neel Furooshan. He was the commander of Pulse Force operation in Syria and Lebanon.
28:24I don't remember people really talk about him in the media, but he was there helping the Hezbollah
28:32organization, helping the leadership in Hezbollah. So, Iranians are always there. It's just a matter
28:38of time that it's just a matter of not really being that interested in showboating or, you know,
28:47advertising the way that we operate. This is not the way that the Iranians behave. You know,
28:55we don't really, we're not the best in media warfare, but in this one instance, I actually
29:04agree with the policy that Iran has, which is not really to go around and advertise every little
29:09move that it does. Well said, actually, and I hope that, you know, people understand this whole
29:23situation and what's your take, your personal take on the ongoing war as in, you know, do you
29:30see a peace treaty coming soon or do you think that this war, the ongoing war is gonna go further
29:39or escalate further? Well, you know, every time that peace comes in the discussion, a ceasefire,
29:52a peace treaty comes into the discussion, I think there is this kind of negligence towards the fact
30:01that every conflict has two sides and, you know, not unless both parties decide to put an end to
30:14everything that is happening, no ceasefire, no peace treaty, nothing of that sort
30:21can be accomplished. By the actions of the Zionist regime, by the rhetoric that they use
30:29in their media, I can say one thing for sure, and that's the fact that the Israelis are not
30:37ready in any shape or form to have, to negotiate any real peace treaty. They are seemingly now
30:47not least bit worried about the hostages that are held by Hamas. They are not interested in,
30:57you know, managing the escalation in the region and preventing the war from expanding
31:03to other territories. In fact, they are opening new fronts in Hezbollah while they are stuck in
31:10Gaza. They have failed to accomplish their objectives in Gaza. They are lashing out on the
31:19innocent Palestinians, but in terms of the military objective, it is very hard for me or
31:25anyone else who is closely monitoring the situation in Gaza to actually understand what the Israelis
31:33are trying to accomplish. It has become that bad that we are now even questioning, okay, you are
31:42carpet bombing the entire city blocks, now there are not really that much left in order for you to
31:50bomb, so what's next? What are you going to do? What is the objective of doing this? What is the
31:57objective that you have by, you know, going into Lebanon? You said that you were going to
32:04basically bring the people who left the northern parts of the occupied Palestine,
32:11the northern parts of Israel. They were forced to relocate to southern parts of the occupied
32:18Palestine. You said that you're going to go to a war with Hezbollah in order to bring these people
32:26back to their home, but now that hasn't been accomplished and there is no clear road map as
32:34to how you're going to achieve it. It's just constantly declaration of war against one country
32:41or another. While you are stuck with Gaza and Lebanon, you're not talking about opening up a
32:47new front against Iran. Obviously, you're constantly bombing Yemen, so those guys are
32:54annoyed at you as well. So, you know, there is no clear objective that is apparent to anyone who is
33:03following this and this becomes very hard because in negotiation you try to find out what the other
33:09side wants from you and in this instance you don't see any reason, any logic to this senseless
33:19bloodshed, which makes the job of the negotiators very, very hard because they don't know what they
33:28should offer to the other side so that it would put an end to the genocide. So, no, unfortunately,
33:35my view on this is very pessimistic. I think that any peace treaty, any ceasefire would only
33:45be achieved through military means. If Hamas succeeds, they can have a peace
33:53treaty, they can have a ceasefire, but if they don't succeed, then Israel will continue to do
34:00what it does every day, basically, for the past 360 something days, close to a year.
34:11Okay, very well put to your thoughts and thank you so very much, Eshan, for connecting with us
34:19and talking to us on One India and sharing your thoughts.
34:24Thanks very much.