Probability of conflict between Turkey and Israel? Changing the equations

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, 28 Amordad 1405, 19 August 2026. Seventy-three years have passed since the shameful coup of 28 Amordad 1332, a conspiracy that the Americans and the British carried out jointly against the national government of Dr. Mosaddegh. They brought back Mohammad Reza Shah, who had fled the country, and put him back on the throne of power. Dr. Mosaddegh was a child of Iran's Constitutional Revolution, and one could say he had two main projects. One was the independence of the country; he rightly believed that as long as the

1:01 Anglo-Iranian oil agreement existed, the country had no independence, because the agreement was such that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company could interfere in every aspect of the country's affairs. His second project was completing, or continuing, the unfinished project of the Constitutional Revolution, which, with the Minor Tyranny, the events that followed, and then the coup of 3 Esfand 1299 and the period of Reza Khan's dictatorship, had in practice been left half-finished. Examining what happened from its various dimensions can be instructive, and I

1:57 am scheduled to speak tomorrow, Thursday, at 9 p.m. Tehran time, on the Pouyesh Clubhouse. I have chosen as my topic a comparison between the oil nationalization law, passed with 8 National Front deputies in the 16th Majlis, and the failure, fifty years later, to amend the press law with 200 Reformist deputies in the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 1379 (2000). In this comparison I have tried to show that the main element is the people, and what strategy there is for the power of the people to make its political mark on various

2:56 outcomes. In any case, I won't go into that discussion here. After this talk I will publish its text and also post it on my Telegram channel. If you are interested, that text, or attending the talk on this Clubhouse, can give more detail on what I have briefly outlined. But the harmful and catastrophic war of America and Israel against Iran is still the country's main issue. The continuation of this state of neither war nor peace has, on the one hand, left the country in an extremely uncertain situation with no future.

4:03 In fact, the 60-day deadline set in the 14-point memorandum of understanding for a ceasefire, during which Iran and America were supposed to negotiate and reach an outcome, has expired without a ceasefire being established. Neither was the Strait of Hormuz opened, nor was the American naval blockade lifted; 13 days of it, in the middle, turned into war again. And now Mr. Trump says there is no plan for now to extend the 60 days. The Islamic Republic, for its part, says America must return to the memorandum, and that it will not open the Strait of Hormuz unless the Islamic Republic's sovereignty over the strait and its management are recognized, along with the discussions surrounding it

5:04 that are being raised. Of course, it is said that Iran and Oman have reached an agreement on how to manage the Strait of Hormuz, an agreement that Mr. Trump rejected in advance, before it was even announced. He even said in a remark a few days ago that we will bomb Oman. Although Mr. Trump doesn't have a sound mind and his words can't be taken seriously, and whatever he hears he will repeat a few minutes later in a speech or an interview, in any case the final decision-maker is the President of the United States, and this matter remains in limbo like this. The damage this situation causes in various respects

6:02 is great, and it must be ended as soon as possible. It has various dimensions. For example, on the one hand, the regime is exploiting the war atmosphere: it has intensified the repression of the people, intensified executions, intensified imprisonment, arrests and the creation of terror. A bill has also been introduced in the Majlis called the "Infiltration" bill, whose general outlines have already been approved in the Majlis. Majid Ansari, the legal and parliamentary vice president of Pezeshkian's government, has said the government opposes it because it violates citizens' rights and the rights stipulated in the Constitution, and so on and so forth. And really, when you read the text of this law,

6:58 it is a disaster, because under its numerous articles, which are written in a very vague and multi-interpretable way, anyone can be arrested. In one sentence, one must say that if its articles were to be implemented, it would be a move toward turning Iran into North Korea. Although the regime lacks the competence and the courage to do many things, if such laws are passed they can give the regime a much freer hand to intensify repression. On the other hand, the continuation of this war and the state of

7:58 uncertainty, where it is not clear whether tomorrow there will be peace or war, whether Israel will come back and strike Iran's infrastructure or not, what America will do, has made the bad economic situation even worse. The economic catastrophe, with the various news that comes out about the war every day, has reached the point where the collapse of people's economic situation and the hardship of their livelihood, in the form of rising inflation and widespread recession, sink their claws deeper every day into people's bodies, souls and lives. For example, after the UAE announced yesterday

8:52 that it would halt trade with Iran, after an Islamic Republic missile was fired at an Emirati ship. Of course, Iran denies it, but in the past few days several Emirati ships have been attacked, and the UAE in turn announced that it is cutting off all trade relations with Iran. Immediately the dollar reached 191,000 tomans, because the UAE has been one of the important bases of the Islamic Republic's trade throughout all these years. In any way and in any form, this state of neither war nor peace must be ended, and this war atmosphere

9:48 must be brought to a close. This must also be said to the rulers in Tehran, who go on about how "we collect such-and-such tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, we're doing this and doing that," or "we brought America to its knees, we did this to them and that to them." It must be said that whatever damage you have inflicted anywhere, ten times that has been inflicted on our own country and on the people of Iran. In any case, any action that helps reduce the current situation and end the war must be supported, and we must join hands. Mr. Khatami, in a talk he gave, said, "I kiss Pezeshkian's hand for

10:45 signing this memorandum," and later in his talk he said that any action that leads to ending the war, reducing Iran's restrictions and opening the way to the country's future must be supported. I too agree with these words of Mr. Khatami's, these words, not with his other actions and statements. And in my view, a broad coalition must be formed among all the national forces of the country, with each part keeping its own principles, from me, who opposes the Velayat-e Faqih and the system of the Islamic Republic and believes this entire system must go, all the way to the Reformists, inside the government, outside the government, inside the country, outside the country. With every part keeping its own principles, a broad coalition must be formed

11:46 around peace, life and the tranquility of the people of Iran, whose outcome would be getting past the current situation and removing the danger hanging over the country of Iran and the people of Iran. But yesterday Israel attacked the Abu al-Duhur base in Idlib, in northwestern Syria, 300 kilometers from Israel and 70 kilometers from the Turkish border. Mr. Netanyahu, explaining the reason for this attack, said that Turkish forces are present at this base. The Israelis also gave America a report according to which Turkey is supplying drones, air defense and advanced radar equipment to the government of Ahmad al-Sharaa, which is close to Turkey and came to power with Turkey's support. Of course, Turkey has denied that it is present at this

12:46 base. But Israel is very afraid of Turkey ending up as its neighbor through Syria, and given the tension between the two countries, this situation becomes a great danger for Israel. Until now, Israel was going after the Islamic Republic's proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, the Houthis of Yemen, and so on. But now, if Turkey, which is a member of NATO, whose Erdogan has very good relations with Mr. Trump, and which has also recently signed a trilateral pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, gets drawn into a conflict with Israel, the matter will take on far wider dimensions for Israel than the current situation.

13:46 Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic had expelled two diplomats from the cultural section of the French embassy, and France had said it would retaliate. Today it expelled Ms. Niloufar Shadmehri from the Iranian embassy in France, and will probably announce the second person within a day or two. This tension arose after these two French cultural consuls had met two Iranian graphic designers, Ms. Elahe Naghilou and Mr. Aria Kasaei, at a cultural event. Both have now been in prison in Iran for more than a month after being arrested. And the things Iranian officials said against France,

14:40 and the French officials' responses, have raised the tension between the two countries. In hope of the victory of Iran and Iranians.