Trump's readiness to quit the war without a nuclear deal

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. Monday, 19 Amordad 1405, 10 August 2026. Mr. Pezeshkian has stated that he had a seven-to-eight-hour meeting with Mojtaba. He also said that Mojtaba is in perfectly good health. Last time, it was reported that Mr. Pezeshkian saw Mojtaba in a car and did not actually see him at all; he spoke to him from behind. This time, he claims that he sat with someone named Mojtaba for seven or eight hours and discussed all the country's issues, especially economic,

0:59 livelihood, and war issues, with Mojtaba. It is said that it was after this conversation that Pezeshkian agreed to Bagher Zolghadr stepping down as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. As I mentioned before, the pressure from the Leader's Office (the Beit) was apparently for Zolghadr to be replaced by Mohsen Rezaei as the other representative of the Leader on the Supreme National Security Council, the other representative being Saeed Jalili. But Pezeshkian had opposed this. In the end,

1:51 his position was that there was no problem with the Leader changing his representative, but that Mr. Zolghadr should remain secretary of the Council, since the Council's secretariat and the administrative and expert apparatus of the Supreme National Security Council are located there, and the secretary's appointment must be issued by the head of the Council, that is, the president. But it seems that after this meeting Pezeshkian gave in anyway, and it was decided that Zolghadr would not only be removed as the Leader's representative, with his new post being political adviser to the Leader, but would also be removed from the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council

2:42 as well. Of course, it is not yet clear who will become secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, but it is said that Mohsen Rezaei will in fact take this post, which, in a way, carries the main responsibility for the country's internal security and is also a kind of second foreign ministry, to which foreign policy issues, especially regional ones, are referred. I mentioned before, and the reports I have received in the past 48 hours further confirm it, that the main reason for sidelining Zolghadr,

3:38 Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, was that he belonged to the camp now known as the Pezeshkian–Araghchi–Ghalibaf triangle, and he was actually on Ghalibaf's side. Mojtaba, like his father, and indeed one could say the approach of the Leader's Office, is that no one should gain power to the point that he cannot stand above them, and in practice he does not allow any of the various factions to grow beyond a certain height. Because Ghalibaf, who is in any case one of the Al Capones of the regime, has his gang, has a network, and recruits followers,

4:30 and because he has also attracted the Americans' attention and headed the Iranian delegation in the Islamabad negotiations, sitting across from JD Vance, apparently Mr. Mojtaba pulled Zolghadr out so that Ghalibaf stays within these limits and doesn't someday develop an appetite for more power. But as for Mohsen Rezaei, who has replaced him: apart from being someone with his head in the clouds who has said strange and bizarre things, his 16-year record as commander-in-chief of the IRGC includes crimes such as Karbala-4, which got thousands of people killed — they insisted on carrying out operations that had already been compromised — or

5:28 at the end of the war, Khomeini had called for him and his accomplices to be tried and even executed, which Hashemi [Rafsanjani] prevented. After that, he was secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council for 24 years, and Khamenei, as long as he was alive, did not allow Mohsen Rezaei to rise any higher than that. He also ran for president four times, and once even received fewer votes than the invalid ballots. He failed every time. In any case, the defining traits of this Mr. Mohsen Rezaei are that he is a weathervane and that he is obedient. At the same time, he opposes the Ghalibaf faction and associates more with the faction of Aziz Jafari and

6:21 others who are in the camp opposed to Ghalibaf. Mohsen Rezaei himself also has his own gang, faction, money and riches, and a mafia network. Another event today was six appointments announced under Mojtaba Khamenei's signature. These six appointments, all of which took place within the armed forces: some, like Ahmad Vahidi's, are a confirmation; he had held this post on an interim basis after the killing of IRGC commander-in-chief Pakpour, but now with this decree he has officially become commander-in-chief of the IRGC. Or some, like Ali Abdollahi, who has gone from

7:22 commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which was responsible for the war, to chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Another point is that the wording of his decree is such that the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters will, in a way, now fall under the General Staff, and the continuation of the war, the responsibility for the war, actually goes under the General Staff, and it is said that in this way the gap between logistics, execution, and so on will be shortened. In fact, one can say that Ali Abdollahi has thereby gained more power. But what is most important of all, in my opinion, is the return of Hossein

8:16 Taeb, a man known as Iran's Beria: violent, merciless, a murderer, sadistic and depraved, who is very close to Mojtaba Khamenei and a corrupt man, to the post of commander-in-chief of the Basij — a post Taeb has held once before. Putting Hossein Taeb at the head of the Basij is in fact baring teeth and claws at the people, and it shows that the understanding of people like Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei of the country's events is still that by repression and by installing murderers like Hossein Taeb they can control the country's situation, and in effect make the atmosphere more securitized and

9:13 increase repression. In my view, this stems from the failure of Mojtaba Khamenei, the Leader's Office, and these factions plundering the country to grasp the economic tsunami that is on its way, and the huge scale of this economic tsunami, which cannot be controlled with the methods the regime has used so far, and whose reach — the reach of this so-called economic tsunami, its fire — will engulf and burn the very pillars of the regime itself. We have already talked about the causes of this coming economic tsunami. We will address it again in a future program. But here I must also say that

10:10 economists like Dr. Nili, who has a very good command of Iran's economy, have also warned — in an editorial in Eghtesad-e Farda, if I'm not mistaken about the website's name — explaining Iran's economic situation, that in short, the country cannot be in crisis and war and at the same time expect calm, reconstruction and investment to return to the economy. Mr. Nili's point is that the country's rulers must choose one of the two, and the second is in fact a path through which it may be possible to help the economy; otherwise, the first, the current situation, will become far worse, and

11:03 hyperinflation is on its way. Meanwhile, America's Wall Street Journal has published a report whose main point is that Trump is prepared to end the war with Iran without reaching a peace agreement, a nuclear agreement. In fact, Trump's senior advisers and senior cabinet members are advising him that it is better to get out of this war as soon as possible. And the only condition Trump still has in mind is that Tehran guarantee the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

11:57 Meanwhile, on the other side, Iran has emphatically raised again the five conditions it had put forward before — it was in the month of Farvardin or Ordibehesht that it stated five conditions — and has said that it is reaching an agreement with Oman over the management of the Strait of Hormuz and is close to a result. But this does not mean full reopening. It is a temporary 60-day agreement, and for full reopening Iran has set five conditions, which include lifting the US naval blockade, lifting sanctions and releasing Iran's funds, paying reparations and damages for this war, a complete end to the war, and

12:53 recognition of Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz and the kind of arrangement it is making with Oman. Of course, Mr. Trump also responded today regarding the issue of reparations, saying that he too has a claim for reparations, and he listed things the Islamic Republic has committed against America over the years, such as roadside bombs in Iraq, or the assassinations they have carried out, or the attack on that American warship and the Americans who were killed, and Mr. Trump said that if it comes to reparations, these are also among America's claims. In any case, it is said that General Dan Caine, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the highest-ranking

13:51 military official after the president, who is commander-in-chief, has strongly advised Mr. Trump to end this war and get out, since it has no good end and will lead nowhere. Mr. Dan Caine is known for having served for 15 years during his career as the liaison between the armed forces and the US intelligence agencies, so he is someone who has very good information about the whole region and Iran, and is therefore actually considered an expert in these matters as well. With hope for the victory of Iran and Iranians.