Netanyahu's trip to Washington and his struggle to drag Trump into war

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. It is Monday, the 1st of Dey 1404, December 22, 2025. The announcement of Mr. Netanyahu's trip to Washington on December 29, in the last days of 2025, set off a wave of speculation and news in the Israeli media, the Persian-language media and the English-language media. Israel's Channel 12 reported that the main subject of Netanyahu's talks with Mr. Trump is the Islamic Republic's missile capability, and said that he wants

0:59 to share confidential intelligence with Trump. In Iran, too, the Fars News Agency, based on what people had seen and were saying, first reported today that the IRGC had carried out missile tests in Mashhad, Isfahan, Tehran, Khorramabad and Mahabad. But a few hours later, the news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) denied the report and said that no missile test had been carried out today at all, and that the white trails seen in the sky were from passing aircraft. In any case, this news, which suddenly surfaced today, once again raised talk of war and expectations

2:03 of a war breaking out between Israel and the Islamic Republic, both in Israel among the Israeli people and in Iran, where it intensified the state of "neither war nor peace" that has hung over our country for several months. But on his trip to Washington, as he tries to convince Trump to back a new war or to get America involved in a new war, Mr. Netanyahu faces two difficulties. The first difficulty is the rift within MAGA, that is, "Make America Great Again," which is Mr. Trump's slogan, and in fact

3:03 the Republicans who make up Mr. Trump's voter base are referred to by this name for short. MAGA is the acronym, the initial letters, of this Trump slogan. At the conference being held by the conservative organization Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona, a rift has in fact appeared within this MAGA wing, according to the American press. Mr. Charlie Kirk, who was killed some time ago, and Mrs. Erika Kirk, who now heads this same organization, Turning Point USA, are the organizers of this AmericaFest, or festival, in

4:00 Arizona, which is a gathering place for a large part of the conservatives of the right wing of the Republican Party. There, Mr. JD Vance, Mr. Trump's vice president, gave a speech in which he emphasized isolationist policies. In addition, this same Mrs. Erika, who is now a prominent figure and the head of this organization, and who, given the killing of her husband, who is very much regarded as a "martyr" of the MAGA wing, is now a prominent figure, endorsed Mr. JD Vance early for the 2028 presidential candidacy. Charlie

4:56 Kirk's widow announced this. So on the one hand, Mr. Trump is under pressure from his own voter base, at least part of his own voter base, which is warning him against getting into any war. The commentaries and analyses that have followed these events stress that Mr. Trump is becoming a plaything in Mr. Netanyahu's hands, that this will happen and that will happen, and the most this wing is willing to accept is intervention in the Americas, probably in Venezuela. But Mr. Netanyahu's second problem in convincing Mr. Trump lies in the influence of Arab countries, mainly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia,

5:51 the latter of which has the upper hand in the current White House, because of the extensive financial ties they established during the four years Mr. Trump was out of the White House with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his associates, as well as with Mr. Witkoff and his associates. The result is that they now have a great deal of influence in the White House, very close friendly relations. And Saudi policy in particular is that no new war should break out in the Middle East, because it creates insecurity and crisis along the path of their investments. Besides, basically,

6:50 the Saudis and the other Arab countries prefer Iran just the way it is now. That is, neither war nor peace. Let it stay a country under sanctions, at least one oil competitor out of the picture, mired in investment problems, poverty and hardship, so that they can tell their own people, "If you turn to the Islamists, this is what will happen to you." And on the other hand, let there not even be a democracy movement or popular movements; let this same repressive regime remain. Because every wave of demand for democracy and civil rights in Iran has an impact on the world

7:42 of Islam and the Arab countries, especially on their modern middle class, to the extent that many believe the Arab Spring was one of the consequences of the impact of the Green Movement in Iran. In any case, this Saudi policy, whereby on the one hand they are trying, with the Islamic Republic and, for example, with Mr. Larijani, who is in contact with them, to de-escalate tensions, to mediate and to sit in the middle of the table, and on the other hand the influence they have in the White House, plus the problem that the Arab countries ultimately have with Israel because of their own people, all together put pressure on Mr. Trump. For Mr.

8:38 Netanyahu to overcome it, the pressure from America's Jewish lobbies and communities would have to be greater than it is now. In any case, we have to wait until December 29 arrives, Mr. Netanyahu travels to Washington, stays a few days, and the negotiations take place. After that, probably from their own statements, the press and so on, it will be easier to assess whether Mr. Netanyahu has finally succeeded in getting consent for a new war or not; it will be easier to assess this then. But Mr. Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis), today

9:35 threatened a number of ministers in Pezeshkian's cabinet with impeachment, saying that if people's economic problems are not solved, impeachment is on the way. Etemad newspaper reported that Mr. Ghalibaf is holding late-night meetings in the Majlis, behind closed doors so to speak, with some of the deputies, and they have sent a message to Mr. Pezeshkian that he must replace several ministers, otherwise they will impeach them in the Majlis and remove them. It is being said that ministers such as the Minister of Roads, Agriculture, or the Minister of Labor and others are on the list. But in any case, Mr. Pezeshkian, who one can say has played very weakly in Iran's political arena so far, and whose government is

10:35 a weak government that has performed very poorly in running the country, can practically be expected either to give in to these struggles or once again to take refuge with Khamenei and ask him to come and look after and protect him, as Khamenei had already done once before. Meanwhile, the CEO of the Light Livestock Union has stated that livestock feed and inputs are not reaching livestock farms and poultry farms, and for this reason production has fallen, and the prices of chicken, eggs, milk, dairy products and meat have gone up. Interestingly, IRIB portrays the livestock farmers as the culprits, as if a group of

11:33 profiteers have driven up prices. That is why today, at a gathering of livestock farmers in Yazd, they were also chanting slogans against IRIB. In short, the situation is that prices of these vital foodstuffs for people are rising several steps ahead of the general rate of inflation. For example, one kilo of veal sirloin at the fruit and vegetable markets on the 10th of Aban was 1,050,000 tomans, and today it has reached 1,580,000 tomans, meaning that in 50 days it has risen by 500,000 tomans on top of one million tomans. This rate of price increase is far, far beyond the rate of inflation and the fall of the rial,

12:30 and it shows that the supply of livestock products on the market has sharply declined. The government's bad policies and its failure to carry out its duties, which for years it could have done and the bureaucracy had the capacity to do, namely delivering livestock feed and inputs on time, are among the important reasons for this chaotic state of agricultural production. Meanwhile, in Zahedan, checkpoints have been set up at the entrances to the city and even inside the city by the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization. Security pressure on the Makki complex, which is Zahedan's mosque and seminary (Darul Uloom), has increased, as it has on the city's Sunnis, something that Mowlavi Abdolhamid has also raised, complaining

13:28 about the increase in security pressure. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.