(LifeSiteNews) — In a highly anticipated interview released Monday morning, the president of Iran told Tucker Carlson the war waged against it by Israel and the United States is the result of Israel’s long-time goals for the region, an “inhuman agenda, and that is having forever wars.”
“My proposal is that the U.S. administration should refrain from getting involved in a war that is not America’s war,” said President Mosoud Pezeshkian, who assumed office in July of last year. “It is [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war that is having its devilish machinations for the whole region.”
“He has his own agenda,” continued the 70-year-old heart surgeon. “(He) wants to drag the U.S. into forever wars, as I said, and to bring more insecurity and instability and unrest to the whole region.”
Of note, Pezeshkian also alleged that amid the “atrocities” committed by Israel in assassinating scientists and off-duty military commanders with their families in their homes, a war crime, the Israeli government also tried to assassinate him.
According to his account, Israeli intelligence identified a place and time where he was engaged in a meeting and “they tried to bombard the area that we were holding that meeting.”
However, “I believe that it is in the hands of God Almighty to determine when a person will die or will not die,” the Iranian politician, a Muslim, said. And thus, “we are not afraid of martyrdom. We are not afraid of sacrificing our lives for our people, for our independence.”
When Carlson asked him if they would re-enter negotiations with the United States over Iran’s nuclear program, Pezeshkian responded that due to these atrocities mentioned above, they have to ask, “how are we going to trust the United States?”
READ: Iran nuclear talks were ‘coordinated deception’ between US and Israel: report
While in negotiations before Israel’s June 13 surprise attack, they were told by the Americans, “that as long as we don’t give the permission to Israel, they are not going to attack you.”
“And we were going to have the next round of the talks very soon. But in the middle of it, suddenly Israel torpedoed the negotiating table,” he recalled. “We were sitting at the negotiating table when it happened. And by doing this, they totally ruined and destroyed diplomacy.”
“If we re-enter the negotiations, then how can we know for sure that in the middle of the talks, the Israeli regime will not be given the permission (by the U.S.) again to attack us?” he asked.
READ: Israel’s attacks on Iran show how the Zionist state has transformed the US
Carlson asked if the Persian state would be willing “to give up the nuclear program in exchange for peace?” and the Iranian leader verified what U.S. intelligence agencies have affirmed for over 20 years, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran has had no intention of building a nuclear weapon for at least 22 years. (See examples of documentation from 2007, 2012, 2018, 2022, 2024, and, 2025.)
Since 1984, Netanyahu “has created this false mentality that Iran seeks a nuclear bomb,” by repeatedly making this assertion, Pezeshkain said. The Israeli leader “has put it in the minds of every U.S. president since then, and to make them believe that we would like to have a nuclear bomb.”
This assertion has been often corroborated by western observers in media and politics, indicating that even 10 years ago, Netanyahu had a “long history” of “crying wolf” with regards to Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons program. This ongoing tall tale was even called out by his own Israeli intelligence services at the time, as reported in the Jewish publication Forward.
This same tactic was utilized successfully by Netanyahu in driving the U.S. into war with Iraq in 2003 in search of “weapons of mass destruction,” which were never found.
“The truth is that we have never been after developing a nuclear bomb, not in the past, not presently, nor in the future, because this is (morally) wrong,” the Iranian president continued. Such an initiative would violate a “the religious decree or the fatwa which has been issued by his eminence, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, so it is religiously forbidden for us to go after a nuclear bomb.”
Carlson probed why relations have broken down between Israel and Iran when they were sound in the past.
“Israel itself is to blame, because just look at what they have been doing in the last couple of years in Palestine and Gaza, what Netanyahu has been doing, killing women and children, bombing schools and hospitals and civilian and residential areas. (There is) nothing short of a full-scale genocide there.”
READ: Genocide ‘only reasonable conclusion’ to Israel’s crimes in Gaza: Amnesty International
“They have blocked the entry of food and medicine, any kind of humanitarian relief to Gaza,” Pezeshkian described. “So this has adversely impacted the way my country and the whole region looks at Israel. And their own behavior and their own actions are to blame, because this is unacceptable what they have been doing in my region.”
“We did not start this war, and we do not want this war to continue in any way,” he said. “This war was imposed on us by the Israeli regime. We did not attack Israel, they attacked us.”
Iran itself has faced criticism for human rights abuses, particularly against Christians. The Muslim-majority nation harshly prohibits distributing Christian materials, including Bibles, in Farsi and has imprisoned Christians for converting to Catholicism or holding church services, for example.
The Iranian president said he was confident Iran could “easily resolve our differences and conflicts with the United States” using international law as a framework for negotiations. Throughout the process he claimed Iran didn’t ask for anything “beyond respect for our rights” which are “enshrined in international law.”
“My heartfelt opinion (is) that we need to live in peace and harmony during this short and limited time granted to us by God Almighty,” he continued. “And everybody in the world should live like that.”
Carlson asked if Iran could expect assistance from Russia and China if the war with Israel and the United States should flare-up again.
“We have always put our trust in God, and in God we trust,” he replied. “We are capable enough to defend ourselves and to stand on our own two feet and to defend our country, our territorial integrity, to the last drop of our blood.”
“As I have said again and again, we don’t want wars, we don’t want to develop a nuclear weapon,” he added.
But the final decision for the region is in the hands the U.S. president, the Iranian leader explained. Trump “is capable enough to guide the region towards peace and a brighter future, and put Israel in its place.” Or, Trump can get into “an endless pit” of a war, and “that is a war that Netanyahu wants the United States or the U.S. president to be dragged into.”
