His starting point: the MOU Trump signed is the only deal on the table . And Iran says Washington has already violated nearly every article of it. Sanctions expanded instead of lifted. Frozen assets never returned.
A U.S.-run corridor set up through the Strait in direct breach of the terms. Marandi's read: negotiating with this administration again isn't a strategy, it's a trap Iran already fell into once.
He also shuts down the reporting Mario had flagged. That Iran's president signaled a softer line, wanting to "end the war while in a position of strength."
Marandi says the clip was cut and spun by Persian-language outlets funded by the U.S., Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The real message, he insists, was about accepting the MOU as it stands, not caving.
On the strikes against the UAE, Marandi denies Iran fired ballistic missiles at all . Only anti-ship missiles, he says, and Iranian missiles "don't fall into the sea."
Whatever happened, he frames the UAE as strategically less important to Iran than it was even six months ago, since new trade corridors through Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Caspian are maturing fast. Reducing Iran's dependence on Gulf ports altogether.
His sharpest line, though, is about who holds the military advantage if this restarts. He points to footage released the same day:
Iran's armed forces commander touring an underground missile factory that Israeli and US strikes never managed to touch.
Missile and drone production, he says, is accelerating, while the U.S. Navy struggles to rebuild depleted stockpiles from scratch, on the other side of the planet.
And on Turkey: no hedging at all. If Israel strikes Turkish forces, Marandi says Iran intervenes militarily. "No doubt."
His closing frame reduces the entire war to one sentence: the wars in the region end, or the Strait doesn't open. Everything else, he says, is negotiable. That isn't.
@s_m_marandi
