Israel strikes industrial infrastructure, and the uncertain future of peace talks

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 Friday, 7 Farvardin 1405, March 27, 2026. Mr. Trump has extended by another ten days, until 16 Farvardin, the five-day deadline he had set for the start of negotiations, which was due to expire today, Friday. He said he would halt attacks on Iran's infrastructure. He will not carry them out unless the negotiations fail; if they fail, he will. The United States has also put forward a 15-point plan, in some of whose final clauses

0:57 the lifting of all sanctions is in fact included, and a 30-day ceasefire is also envisaged. Its content, of course, mainly concerns the issue of zero enrichment, handing over the roughly 400 kilograms of enriched uranium that currently exist, reducing the range of missiles so they serve only defensive purposes, and the issue of proxy forces: those same three subjects. Of course, such proposals usually set out maximal demands, and the Americans will presumably also have a minimum, with the negotiations ending up somewhere between the two. The Islamic Republic had announced that it would not come

1:52 to negotiate. A five-point plan had been reported on its behalf, but it had said that by the end of tonight, Iran time, it would respond to the American plan and formally present its own proposal. However, with the attacks Israel carried out yesterday on Tehran, on a very wide scale, and on many other parts of the country, though in Tehran they were perhaps the heaviest attacks since the start of this month-long war, many neighborhoods and parts of Tehran were hit. The planes were also flying so low that, as someone in Iran put it, if you stood on your balcony you might have

2:46 seen the pilot. And today in particular, the strikes on the Mobarakeh Steel plant, Khuzestan Steel, and Firouzabad Cement, all three of which are in fact considered among the country's basic and infrastructural industries, led the Islamic Republic to announce, through Mr. Araghchi, that since Trump had said he would not strike for ten days, and Israel, which is America's accomplice, had done this, "we will not submit a proposal either." So for now the door to negotiations has closed again. Besides these three basic industrial plants, Israel also struck the Ardakan yellowcake plant

3:41 in Yazd, as well as the Khondab heavy-water reactor in Arak, which of course it had struck before. It was announced that the strike on the Ardakan yellowcake plant fortunately did not release harmful radiation. Firouzabad Cement, with a capacity of about one million tons out of the country's 90 million tons of cement production capacity, is actually a medium-sized plant, since our large plants have a capacity of about 3.5 million tons. But the point is that Firouzabad in Fars is one of the cement suppliers for the south of the country, supplying the

4:33 construction projects of southern Iran. Mobarakeh Steel, however, is the country's largest steel complex, with an annual production capacity of 7 million tons. It is our largest steel plant, the country's largest producer of steel sheet and other construction and steel products, and also Iran's largest steel exporter. Its products are consumed by car manufacturers, home appliance makers, the construction industry, shipbuilding, and many downstream industries. Fourteen thousand people work directly in the various phases of Mobarakeh Steel. Likewise the Khuzestan Steel plants, which form a major steel complex of the country, where

5:35 nearly 17,000 people work directly in the various plants of Khuzestan Steel. This steel complex has an annual production capacity of 5 million tons, including steel billets and various kinds of rods, wire, sheet and so on, which are again used in construction and other industries. The billets in fact go to numerous rolling mills and downstream industries, a large share of whose products are in turn used in various industries across the country. Israel's pretext is that the products of these plants are also used, for example, in military industries, which is natural, since steel and iron products

6:28 are among the most basic of industries, used everywhere. But the reality is that if we count the downstream industries, which will also be damaged, striking these plants may affect hundreds of thousands of workers and their families, and if they are not brought back into operation, the country's industrial sector will face major problems. In any case, this move by Israel is clearly in line with Israel's strategy. It has found an opportunity, dragged America into a war, and through this war it is going after all

7:22 the capacities not only of Iran's military, police, security and even border-guard forces and so on, and our military industries, but has also gone after the basic industries, infrastructure, various industries of the country and industrial towns. In fact, its aim is to leave behind a helpless and weak country, regardless of who rules Iran, one mired in internal disputes, wars and conflicts and with a completely bankrupt economy, so that it can rest assured that for several decades it cannot be a nuisance to Israel. But regarding America, this matter has come under a big question mark. Serious questions have been raised in the American media, and not only by the Democratic

8:22 Party but also by parts of the Republican Party, asking Mr. Trump: what was your goal in this war? A wave has also risen in the American media, which I had not seen until now, against Israel as well, saying that Israel dragged America into this war, a war whose goal for America is unclear. That is, if Israel had said, for example, "we will wage this war and the regime will be overthrown," it has now become clear that the Islamic Republic regime will not be overthrown from the sky like this. Whoever they kill, it ultimately has a structure; they appoint a successor, and it is not as if it falls apart. And even if it did fall apart,

9:18 it is unclear what would happen in the country afterward. If, as they ask Mr. Trump, his aim was the nuclear issue, that did not require this military campaign. Besides, those 400 kilograms of uranium will not be found this way; they are surely stored in dozens of places around the country. And the scientific and technical capability has become indigenous in Iran, so even if it has been destroyed, they can rebuild it. And if the aim was destroying the Islamic Republic's missile and drone capability, it has been damaged, very much so, but it has shown that it is capable of producing again, and the know-how for this production has become indigenous. Therefore, the production capability in Iran, which is the seventeenth largest country in the world and, in terms of population, perhaps also around the seventeenth

10:18 most populous country in the world, and whose level of knowledge, literacy, engineering and technology is fairly good, will not be eliminated this way. Hence the continuation of this process, in which the Islamic Republic in turn has managed to close the Strait of Hormuz, and with its repeated attacks, launched in response to these very Israeli attacks, has again struck Arab countries, has in practice had a huge impact not only on the economies of the countries of the region, or even on the oil, energy and gas economy and prices, but its effects have also reached, for example, American agriculture, because fertilizers, that is, chemical fertilizers, which are produced in petrochemical plants,

11:17 are not getting out of the region, their price has gone up worldwide, and farmers, for example in America or Europe, will raise the prices of agricultural products and food production, and this will happen for the whole world. Or, for example, its effects in Arab countries, from Egypt to Jordan, and on to Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea and others, where rising prices of fuel and other products have affected the functioning of these countries' entire economies. It has also affected stock markets around the world. Therefore the question to Mr. Trump is: what do you want to do, and where do you want to take the end of this war? This has been seriously raised. In my view, too, one thing is that he must restrain Israel so that

12:19 it does not destroy Iran's assets like this, because war with the Islamic Republic is different from war with the people of Iran and the country of Iran. These actions by Israel are against the people of Iran and the country of Iran, and America too is considered a partner in this crime. Although there is now criticism of Mr. Trump, even within parts of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the media and various figures, the right wing of the Republican Party, which is holding a gathering in Washington to prepare for the upcoming November elections, backed Mr. Trump's warmongering at the session they held today, and

13:14 in fact backed Mr. Trump in this endless war without a plan or a goal. And now anyone else who comes along and wants to support this gathering is, in effect, supporting the destruction of the country of Iran and the suffering of the people of Iran. After the killing of Alireza Tangsiri, the IRGC Navy commander, which happened on Wednesday during very extensive strikes on Army and IRGC facilities in Bandar Abbas, there is talk of the killing of Shahram Irani, the commander of the Army's navy. Today, one or two sources also spoke of the killing of Ahmad Vahidi,

14:10 who is now the commander-in-chief of the IRGC, but this news has not yet been confirmed. A point we may address on coming nights is that with the killing of this old, founding generation of the IRGC, control is falling into the hands of a second and third generation, most of whom were trained by the Russians and Russia. In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.