Subscribe Today
Request a Clip
Iranian Professor Mohammad Marandi, who teaches English at Tehran University, told former British MP George Galloway in a December 8, 2024 interview following the collapse of the Bashar Al-Assad regime that "Netanyahu has succeeded in raising the black flag of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Damascus." He lamented that after "what Erdoğan has done" he can no longer say that Israel has been defeated. Galloway replied that in fact, the collapse of the Assad regime is an Israeli victory and echoing a post on X he had written earlier that day, he said: "October 7 now looks like a very bad idea, and it makes you wonder whose idea it was anyway." Marandi discussed Iranian regional influence saying that while Erdoğan was not serious about the Palestinian cause and did not give Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank a single bullet, Iran supplied weapons to the West Bank. He further said that Iran had sent troops and advisors to Damascus in order to ward off the opposition, but President Bashar Al-Assad and the Syrian army refused to fight them.
Mohammad Marandi: "Netanyahu has succeeded in raising the black flags of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Damascus.
[...]
"Erdoğan has never been serious about the Palestinian cause.
[...]
"He never sent a single bullet to Gaza. He never sent a single bullet to the West Bank.
[...]
"Iran and Syria were supporting the West Bank. The Syrians were supporting the West Bank until now, so now the West Bank is going to have a much more difficult time protecting itself.
[...]
"Now, after what Erdoğan has done, the equation has changed, and this Israeli defeat is... I can't call it a defeat anymore."
[...]
George Galloway: "Let me say what you are not able to say or don't feel able to say: It's an Israeli victory.
[...]
"October 7 now looks like a very bad idea, and it makes you wonder whose idea was it anyway."
[...]
Marandi: "How could Yahya Sinwar who led that operation be blamed for the criminal behavior of the Erdoğan regime and his henchmen? I cannot blame Hamas or the Islamic Jihad for what they did."
Galloway: "Yeah.
[...]
"But why did Iran not see this coming?"
[...]
Marandi: "The Iranians did send a large number of advisors, they were in Damascus, and troops under Iranian supervision were in Damascus and in the areas around it. They had come in from abroad, but – as I said – they needed the full consent and support of the president [of Syria] and thus the cooperation of the Syrian Arab Army in order to begin fighting. So Iran was prepared to make sacrifices, but if the Syrian president was not committed and if the Syrian army was not committed, then it would have been a failure, and you would have had a lot of dead Iranians."
Latest Clips
