Ghalibaf's meeting with Mojtaba in a metro tunnel for peace

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. Today is Wednesday, 29 Mehr 1405, October 21, 2026. Today the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, followed by agencies like Mehr, IRNA and others, reported that Mr. Ghalibaf had met with Mojtaba Khamenei. They repeated the usual boilerplate: that in this meeting they discussed the activities of the Majlis deputies, people's livelihoods, matters of war, defensive and strategic preparedness, and so on and so forth.

0:53 But what is being heard from sources inside the regime is a different story. First, the meeting took place in a metro tunnel, in certain sections of the metro where Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei is inside a railcar, and that is where people go to meet him. During the war it was said that the cabinet also held its meetings this way, in the metro tunnels. Second, Mr. Ghalibaf's main point was that we must make peace, give or take a little, in effect.

1:43 He argued that we should start these negotiations with America and prevent a new war. He asked Mojtaba Khamenei to back this line, to set aside that "in principle, I have a different view" stance, to rein in the hardliners and bring them to the peace talks. Why is this meeting important, and why is it said that Mr. Ghalibaf rushed to go and say this? Because Mr. Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, Field Marshal Asim Munir, who came to Tehran yesterday, Tuesday,

2:37 was in fact carrying a message that could perhaps be described as "take it or leave it." The Americans have given their response to Iran's seven-point proposal, and what they are saying, in short, is: either you accept this, or there is no deal. The story is that Mr. Araghchi also announced that, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Iran gave America a seven-point proposal for America to carry out over six days; on the sixth day the Strait of Hormuz would be opened, and from the seventh day they could begin negotiations

3:26 on the nuclear issue. Iran's seven points have not been officially announced, but it is said that one of them is an end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon; another is the lifting of the naval blockade; likewise, permission for Iran to sell oil, and the release of $24 billion of Iran's money, or at least $12 billion of it, in the first phase. Apparently America has put forward a counterproposal to this, and the gist of what the Americans are saying is that

4:14 the cards America holds, such as the naval blockade, the pressure of sanctions and so on, can be removed, but first the nuclear talks begin, and in parallel with the concessions Iran makes, America is prepared to play these cards and actually lift these sanctions or whatever else. So America has made it conditional on the progress of the negotiations, not a precondition whereby it first does all these things and then comes and sits at the nuclear table. Apparently this was the final word. Also, regarding the nuclear issue, Mr. Asim Munir carried, as a follow-up to this

5:08 proposal, the point that whatever negotiations take place, the fate of the 400 kilos of 60-percent uranium that Iran has must be settled. The Americans, in short, want this addressed in advance of the negotiations. Mr. Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said in his meeting with Asim Munir that not even one kilo of uranium is going to leave Iran. In this connection, it is said that Mr. Lavrov's trip to Tehran also carried a proposal; the trip he made to Tehran carried the proposal

5:56 that Russia is prepared, as in the JCPOA episode, to take these 400 kilos of uranium out of Iran, convert it, and give it back to Iran as, say, 5-percent uranium. Russia has in fact been saying for some time that it is ready to mediate between Iran and America, to be the intermediary in the negotiations and play a role. Mr. Witkoff, who traveled to Moscow, reportedly regarding the issue of Ukraine and energy, met Mr. Putin, and what the

6:45 Kremlin said is that Russia has relations with Tehran based on trust and strategic partnership. It is said that Mr. Witkoff asked Russia to drop its support for Tehran so that America in turn would help Russia on the Ukraine issue. Because these days there is serious talk of a meeting between the leaders of China, Russia and America over Ukraine. This is something both Ukraine and the European Union object to: that negotiating Ukraine's fate without the presence of Ukraine and its

7:33 main backer, the European Union, is unacceptable. Now the question being raised is whether Russia, given that its own situation is bad, that it badly needs the sanctions lifted to improve its economy, that there has been discontent and even unrest inside Russia over fuel and rising prices, as Ukraine, with its improved drone capabilities, targets Russian refineries even at great distances of several hundred and even several thousand kilometers, and that Russia needs to bring this to peace,

8:25 whether, in any case, this need of Russia's and this situation of America's and so on will ultimately lead to a give-and-take in which Iran comes out empty-handed or not. In my view, judging from the messages of Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Asim Munir, the conclusion of the part of the Iranian regime that wants an end to the war and negotiations, that is, Mr. Ghalibaf, Pezeshkian, Araghchi and the like, is that they should somehow patch the matter together and not let a new round of war begin. That is why they went to see Mr. Mojtaba Khamenei,

9:14 a leader known as the "cardboard leader," whom, since he was declared leader, no one has seen and no one has heard his voice, and it is not even clear whether he is in a coma or conscious, whether he has arms and legs or not. Some even say he may not be alive at all, that he is dead, although people like Mr. Ghalibaf, and earlier Mr. Pezeshkian, claim that they have sat with him for long hours, even talked with him for seven hours, and that he is in perfect health. On the other hand, what might perhaps be considered Tehran's card is the escalation of matters in Yemen and the war between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. As for Egypt, there was talk of it announcing support

10:06 for Saudi Arabia and coming to Saudi Arabia's aid in this war. Mr. Sisi raised it in his parliament, but in the end, pleasantries aside, "yes, we will help Saudi Arabia," the upshot was that this support does not include Egyptian intervention in Yemen. Yemen, where at one time, in the era of Abdel Nasser, there was a proxy war between this very Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and ultimately Egypt quickly pulled out because it could not sustain that proxy war. Incidentally, it was between the same North and South, but the other way around back then, and the Egyptians supported the southern government.

10:54 In any case, the point is that Turkey and Pakistan, which have signed defense pacts with Saudi Arabia, have so far said they will not intervene there, in Yemen. At any rate, the Yemen issue, and the ability of the Iran-backed Houthis to close the Bab el-Mandeb, or at least to threaten Saudi Arabia's port of Yanbu, through which more than five and a half to six million barrels of its oil exports pass, is something that puts pressure on the oil market. With every clash between Saudi Arabia and Yemen,

11:48 oil has gone up as high as $111 a barrel, and it closed at $108 yesterday. The issue is that Saudi Arabia is a big country, slightly larger than Iran in area, and missile defense, especially against ballistic missiles, is practically impossible for Saudi Arabia in a way that covers all of its territory. So here, given the missile and drone capabilities the Houthis have acquired, Saudi Arabia is vulnerable, and this matters for the world energy market and the global economy, to the point that today Mr. Macron, the President of France, went to Riyadh without prior

12:38 announcement and met with Mr. bin Salman. On the other hand, Mr. Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and US special envoy for Syria and Iraq, in a piece he sent to the Qatar security conference, known as "Davos in the Desert," raised a point that is also important. He said America's security umbrella is not what it used to be. In short, the gist of his piece is that ensuring the security of the Persian Gulf countries in exchange for oil is no longer America's priority, and as for oil, given America's

13:31 increased production, and then in the medium term the decline in the so-called strategic value of oil, America will no longer go to any lengths to protect the security of these countries. Besides, in the Persian Gulf war with Iran it was seen that America's conventional military basically cannot do much to provide security against drones and cheap missiles and the like, and these Persian Gulf countries must think of something for themselves. In fact, the strategic equations of the region are being upended and

14:20 reshuffled. In any case, on this issue, Admiral McRaven, one of America's prominent military figures, now retired, published a lengthy article in Foreign Affairs magazine yesterday, which I will address in future programs. He looks at it from a broad strategic perspective, arguing that the use of America's military power in political matters has limits and that America must fundamentally rethink. Hoping for the victory of Iran and Iranians.