Pezeshkian and announcing readiness for peace, Ghalibaf and fear of the hungry's uprising

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. Friday, 30 Mordad 1405, August 21, 2026. In today's coordinated line from the Friday prayer leaders, apart from the issue of the war, the issue of hijab and dealing with the women and girls of Iran was raised. When the Friday prayer leaders all repeat something in a coordinated line like this, it is completely clear that it was in fact communicated by the Office of Friday and Congregational Prayer Leaders and the clerical office in the Supreme Leader's household that they should say it. Beyond this, for some time now harassment has begun of cafeterias and places where young people gather to drink tea,

0:56 drink coffee, chat, talk and meet up, and in practice the issue of cracking down over hijab is in fact being raised. The regime's people, these Friday prayer leaders, all spoke today about enforcing the Chastity and Hijab Law, the same law whose enforcement was halted in Mr. Khamenei's time, when Khamenei agreed to stop it under pressure from Mr. Pezeshkian. On the other hand, what has leaked from IRGC Intelligence shows that their assessment is that,

1:48 through individuals in the Basij, the mosques and so on, clashes with women and girls on the pretext of hijab could occur in the streets and things could practically come to blows. Given that this kind of groundwork, these threats, and one could also say a kind of incitement of some ignorant religious people to confront the country's women and girls over the voluntary dress they have chosen, are being observed, two

2:40 possibilities can be considered. One is that the regime, or rather parts of the regime, are genuinely worried and the issue really is these so-called religious sensitivities, and they have forgotten the heroic struggle of Iranian women and youth in 1401 [2022] and the stronghold they conquered, which cannot be reversed. But the second possibility is that a scenario has been designed in the Supreme Leader's household to once again show their teeth on the issue of hijab, alongside that infiltration law which in effect

3:37 has turning Iran into North Korea on its agenda, and likewise the effort, by placing people like Mr. Taeb at the head of the Basij and a man like Ahmad Vahidi at the IRGC, to create terror and fear, along with executions and repression of the people, because they are worried about major popular uprisings, especially because of the economic situation. At the same time, both of these could be true, meaning a kind of planning and groundwork to create terror and fear and a street show of force on the pretext of hijab

4:32 in order to create fear and terror and repression, while providing the instrument for it among ignorant religious fanatics who would in practice drag things into clashes that would pave the way for this repression. In any case, what can be said, whether this is IRGC Intelligence's assessment or not, or about these threats that the Friday prayer leaders made today, which were quite clearly dictated to them by the Supreme Leader's household, what is clear is that the brave women and girls of Iran, with the support they have had and still have from Iranian men, are not willing to retreat on voluntary dress,

5:31 and if the regime makes a mistake and sets foot on this path, it will receive a slap from the people harder than in 1401 [2022]. Now, America's strategy regarding the war with the Islamic Republic and the issue of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz seems to have undergone a change, at least until November, Aban, when the elections for the House of Representatives and one third of America's senators take place, the elections known as the midterms. Because many American news agencies and media outlets, after the interview with Mr.

6:27 Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, and Mr. Trump, stated that America is shifting from military war to economic war. It seems that America's strategy, when we put all the news together, is that on the one hand it is trying to open the Strait of Hormuz through the southern passage. With the attacks it has also carried out on Iran's radar stations, it has reduced Iran's intelligence dominance over this strait. And America claims that 10 million barrels of oil are being taken out daily through the southern passage of the Strait of Hormuz, although data from the company Kpler and other companies that monitor this say that something between five and six million barrels of oil

7:26 pass through the southern passage, mostly by small ships of 200,000 to 300,000 barrels which, since their draft is shallow, can pass through there and go to the other side of the strait and then hand over to large tankers. If this is in any case accurate, one can say that America's strategy is that this 10 million it now claims, whether it reaches it or not, can then be raised to 20 million barrels, the figure that passed through the Strait of Hormuz daily before the recent war, and that it would then take the lever of controlling the Strait of Hormuz away from Iran. This is one part of the strategy.

8:22 The other part is in fact the continuation of the naval blockade, which would not allow Iran to export oil or petroleum products. And the third element of this strategy is intensifying economic pressure and threatening any country that does business with Iran. As a first step, America put the main pressure on the Emirates, and among the Emirati sheikhdoms, Dubai is the main place, and the Americans emphasized that it must cut its trade relations with Iran. Dubai announced it would do this, that is,

9:13 the United Arab Emirates announced it, and it is said that it is supposed to do so within a month. How far they will succeed is another matter, because more than 14,000 Iranian companies operate in Dubai, and in fact it is the hub, the center, both for imports to Iran and for exports. As for the exchange houses, Iranian exchange houses from Australia to Canada and Europe, wherever they are, again have their main center of circulation in Dubai. In short, a large part of the trade not only of Iran but of Dubai itself is through trade with Iran, and this is something that it is not clear

10:09 Dubai can afford to give up, and Iran is counting on exactly this. But the mere announcement immediately sent the dollar in Iran into the 190,000-toman range, and the price of gold also rose extraordinarily. Now, regarding this threefold strategy, that is, removing control of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's dominance over it, the naval blockade, and intensifying economic pressure, on the one hand Iran's official reaction, Mr. Araghchi's for example, was that this is a rerun, we've seen this film before,

11:00 the scenarios of maximum pressure and unconditional surrender and so on, and they said we know the ways around this and, in short, we will circumvent it. But on the other hand, Mr. Pezeshkian spoke today and explicitly said that it is better to end the war now while we are in a position of strength. Mr. Ghalibaf, too, who has made a three-day trip to Iraq, stated at the Iranian embassy before a gathering of Iranian and Iraqi merchants that however much military power we may have, if the people are hungry we will not survive. In effect, the well-known triangle of Mr. Pezeshkian, Ghalibaf and Araghchi, who are on the side of negotiation and peace, are talking about peace and ending the war, although the triangle of Taeb, Ahmad Vahidi and Mohsen Rezaei may

12:05 not hold such a view. But some believe this trip by Mr. Ghalibaf has two other reasons as well. One is the issue of the Hashd al-Shaabi and the debate over disarming the Hashd al-Shaabi, since parts of the fourteen forces of the Hashd al-Shaabi, such as Kataib Hezbollah or Badr, have very close relations with Iran and refuse to accept disarmament and joining, so to speak, the state forces and giving up their independence. Mr. Qaani, too, apparently raised this matter with them on a trip he made a few days before Mr. Araghchi's. The other point is that

12:59 it is said Ghalibaf is making an arrangement with Iraq so that part of Iran's oil can be exported under the name of Iraqi oil, in effect as a swap. What Iran used to do for Iraq during the UN sanctions against Saddam would now happen the other way around, meaning that part of the crude oil would go by pipeline to, say, Basra, and part by ship to the port of Fao and Basra, since America controls the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and part would be traded through arrangements over Iraq's extraction from shared oil and gas fields, and in this way Iran could

13:54 export one to one and a half million barrels under the guise of Iraqi oil, or at least four to five hundred thousand barrels of oil a day. These are, of course, speculations, but this matter has also been raised regarding Mr. Ghalibaf's trip. A meeting of Israel's security cabinet regarding Turkey and the military equipment it is bringing into Syria was held today. Israel's ambassador to America, Mr. Yechiel Leiter, has said that Israel has reliable intelligence that Turkey intends to significantly increase its military presence in Syria. On the other side, Turkey too has issued an international arrest warrant

14:52 for Mr. Netanyahu over the Gaza aid flotilla that the Israelis intercepted, and of course Turkey had previously also issued an international arrest warrant for Netanyahu once before, on charges of genocide in Gaza. In any case, tension between these two countries has intensified, and it is one of the issues in the Middle East on which many observers now have their eyes. Hoping for the victory of Iran and Iranians.