The hidden map of the war from the perspective of the Israeli newspaper

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 Wednesday, 14 Mordad 1405, August 5, 2026. Mr. Pezeshkian's government has sent to the Majlis, as a one-stage urgent bill, the bill for joining the 2018 (1397 in the Iranian calendar) Turkmenistan convention. This convention, which was signed during Mr. Rouhani's time, concerns the legal regime of the Caspian Sea, and it revises the earlier 1921 and 1940 agreements with the Soviet Union regarding this sea.

0:54 Under those agreements, apart from the so-called coastal waters, the issue of fishing, and the protocols that were later added to them, there is one important point: they had declared this enclosed sea between the two countries, Iran and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, to be jointly owned. In effect, this joint ownership meant a fifty-fifty division of the surface of this sea. And on all the maps published over these years, half of the Caspian Sea

1:51 has been printed above the map of Iran as Iran's right, as Iranian territory. The most important point about this convention is that although it does not determine the boundary lines, it in effect endorses the dismantling of that previous legal regime. In other words, instead of Iran being able to say, "My right is preserved; now the Soviet Union is dead and four other countries have taken its place, so the Soviet share should be divided among these four countries however they see fit," Iran instead becomes one of five countries. Then, if tomorrow another one of

2:45 these countries breaks up, presumably there would have to be six, or sixty, countries, and each time Iran's share would get smaller. There is the issue of connecting the two ends of the land border, the issue of the undersea resources being left unaddressed, which were not mentioned in the agreements between Iran and the Soviet Union either, and other issues, all of which effectively turn this bill into the separation of a large part of our country, larger than Isfahan province, as well as the loss of Iran's rights. And this in the middle of the war with America

3:42 and Israel and the issues of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and a Majlis that has been shut down for five months now comes back and this bill is being pushed through as urgent. It is something the other four countries, who were only too eager, ratified right after that Turkmenistan meeting, and they are happy because they will divide Iran's share among themselves. But in Iran, none of the governments had even submitted it to the Majlis until now, and now the matter has been sent to the Majlis. Article 78 of the Islamic Republic's own Constitution says that changing the boundary lines

4:39 is completely forbidden, except for minor changes, and even those require approval by four-fifths of the total number of deputies, not of the deputies present in the session. So out of 290 deputies, 232 would have to vote yes even for a minor change to the boundary lines, whereas this convention involves sweeping changes. In any case, this is a matter that every Iranian should, to the best of their ability, protest, demanding that the government withdraw this bill from the Majlis and not inflict, in the middle of the country's chaotic situation, a great wound on the territorial integrity of Iran.

5:44 Now, the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, one of Israel's several best-known, high-circulation newspapers, published a report yesterday by Mr. Yossi Yehoshua. The author does not actually support Netanyahu's government, but according to him, for this analytical and investigative report he gathered information from security and political sources, many of whom did not want to be named. The gist of this article is that the goal of Mr. Netanyahu's government in starting the war with the Islamic Republic went beyond damaging its nuclear and missile programs; its goal was the collapse of the Islamic Republic regime, in

6:48 several stages. Stage one: eliminating the senior commanders of the IRGC and the army. Stage two: assassinating or incapacitating key decision-making leaders. Stage three: paralyzing the command, communications, and internal security network. Stage four: attacking government centers and creating the impression that the government had lost control of the situation. And stage five: creating conditions in which popular protests would spread and the security forces would defect, and in that situation bringing some person or persons to power. Other reports, such as the New York Times reports on this Israeli plan, have also named

7:48 people like Mr. Reza Pahlavi and Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as having been considered by the Israelis, or arming Kurdish groups to take up weapons and set out to conquer Tehran, or to further destabilize the situation. This report says that Mr. David Barnea, the head of the Mossad at the time, had also given the plan to the Americans, and Mr. Netanyahu supported it. But for reasons given in this report, on the one hand, the Islamic Republic, which was prepared to counter this, did not lose its unity of command, and on the other hand, even some of the regime's opponents

8:47 opposed this war and Israel's interference, and as a result the people did not react either. Also, America opposed this plan and Washington did not consider it feasible. In any case, in my opinion, the people who devised such ideas in Israel's Mossad or other Israeli security and intelligence branches are probably not so naive as not to understand that Israel is not big enough to be able to topple a government in Iran and install another, and especially not by starting a war, given the attitude we Iranians have toward foreign

9:46 interference. Rather, in my opinion, this was the outward appearance of the plan, and the Israelis did not think it had a chance of success in bringing another government to power or overthrowing the regime. Rather, under this banner, they wanted, first, to drag America into the war, and second, to inflict enormous damage on Iran: to destroy the country's capacity, especially its economic capacity, its energy capacity and its resources; to leave behind a crippled, weak, and wretched entity, mired in conflict, and possibly at a later stage in civil war and collapse, so that Israel

10:40 could rest easy about Iran for years, regardless of who is in power in Iran or comes to power. And if the Islamic Republic, in retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure, attacks the infrastructure of Arab countries, which it has announced it will do, that is even better for Israel, because at Iran's hands it would have wounded the Arabs, who ultimately are not fond of Israel. In any case, these days such noises are coming out, and once again the argument is being seriously raised that this pointless and destructive war, which has so far caused more than half a trillion dollars in damage to our country, must end as soon as possible.

11:37 The state of neither war nor peace must be set aside, and the people must actually be assured that there is no more war and that no attack is coming. Then negotiations over the details can take as long as they need, so that the country's ills can actually be addressed, and so that Iran's freedom-seekers can secure their fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, freedom of belief, and freedom of conscience, and can to some extent remedy the great economic ills by seizing and nationalizing the assets plundered from the nation by the Leader, the IRGC, and the regime's freeloaders, and handing them over to the people. And ultimately, a transition to a

12:36 secular democracy based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, within the framework of a united Iran, can be carried out by the people, through the people, and with the power of the people. Meanwhile, Mr. Kazem Gharibabadi, the Islamic Republic's deputy foreign minister, has announced that Iran and Oman have reached an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz and a temporary route for passage through the strait, which will be implemented within 60 days and later, with more details, lead to a treaty. Mr. Baghaei, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, has also said that the two countries' joint statement is in its

13:30 final stage. According to what Mr. Gharibabadi said, the northern route, which passes by Larak and through Iranian waters, and the southern route, which lies in Omani waters, will be closed, and a middle route agreed upon by both sides, which will be cleared of mines and made safe, will serve as the shipping lane. Tonight, the first part of Mr. Pezeshkian's interview was broadcast on Islamic Republic television. A noteworthy point he made in it was that Mojtaba Khamenei had told him that if four-fifths of the members of the Supreme National Security Council voted for the memorandum of understanding, he would agree too. And Mr. Pezeshkian said that in the session, out of

14:24 13 members, there were 12 votes in favor and only one against, so in this way Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei was also in favor. In this way, Mr. Pezeshkian has indicated that the uproar raised by the opponents of this memorandum, those who favor continuing the war and have been beating the drums of war, runs contrary to what the new Leader had said. At this year's Arbaeen ceremonies in Iraq, clashes broke out between supporters of the Islamic Republic and followers of Ayatollah Sayyed Sadegh Shirazi, one of the marjas who does not support the Islamic Republic. It came to the point of police intervention; in the end 54 people were injured and 140 people were also arrested.

15:28 In hope of victory for Iran and Iranians.