By Max Blumenthal – The Grayzone
In a meeting with US antiwar figures, Iranian Pres. Masoud Pezeshkian forecasted a more intense round of conflict with Israel and the US, and slammed Washington’s intransigence.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived late to a September 24, 2025 meeting with American antiwar figures on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. He had come from a fateful tete-a-tete with Emmanuel Macron, where he attempted to cajole his French counterpart into delaying expiration of the JCPOA nuclear deal rather than instituting snapback sanctions. Pezeshkian’s lobbying was fruitless; the Europeans had already decided to ratchet up the economic war on Tehran. Meanwhile, Israel was preparing for another attack on Iran with American support practically guaranteed.
“No doubt they will attack Iran. And we will defend ourselves vigorously,” Pezeshkian declared to his audience of about 25 antiwar journalists, activists and think tank analysts gathered inside a conference hall in a Midtown Manhattan hotel. A camouflaged bomb squad stood watch outside the room, while grim-looking federal agents paced the halls.
The session consisted of two rounds of questioning and comments from participants, with two rounds of responses from Pezeshkian. The format lent itself to generalized answers, with some of the more pointed questions seemingly lost in translation.
I opened the first round by referencing a speech delivered a day before by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he branded negotiations with the US as something “no honorable nation would ever do, and no wise statesman would ever endorse.”
“Accepting negotiations under such threats would mean that the Islamic Republic of Iran is susceptible to intimidation. If we were to negotiate under such threats, it would mean that we tremble and surrender whenever threatened,” Khamenei proclaimed.
I asked Pezeshkian if these statements were reflective of his administration’s view, and if he believed that Trump had exploited the last round of nuclear negotiations to lure Iran’s leadership into a false sense of security that made it vulnerable to Israel’s unprovoked attack.
Following a battery of questions from other participants, the Iranian president blasted Trump’s diplomatic tactics: “This was not negotiation, it was dictation,” he said.
“Someone should have recorded what [Trump’s Middle East envoy] Steve Witkoff said,” Pezeshkian continued. “He says one thing to us and all of the sudden he returns to Washington and says something else. How can we negotiate with someone like that?”
Pezeshkian referenced a book which he believed articulated the fundamentally destructive nature of US foreign policy. Called “Making Endless War,” the volume is a compilation of essays analyzing the Vietnam war and Arab-Israeli conflicts which argue that wars for resources and geopolitical control have become a permanent component of post-war American diplomacy.
Seated beside Pezeshkian was his Foreign Minister, Abbas Aragchi. Visibly tired from days of wrangling on snapback sanctions, Aragchi recalled how Israel detonated an explosive inside the Natanz Nuclear Facility in 2018, destroying some 4000 centrifuges. While Iran increased its enrichment levels in retaliation, he emphasized that it continued the negotiations which Israel had sought to sabotage.
Even today, Aragchi said, “We are willing to be flexible if we can get appropriate action in return.”
Yet the Foreign Minister and his team would leave New York without any concessions from the Europeans. Snapback sanctions were “a done deal,” according to Macron.
For Iran’s leadership, the West’s intransigence had given Israel the green light for another attack. But Pezeshkian noted that Iranian society was stronger following the 12-day war last June. “The last attack brought unity,” he insisted. “Iranians opposed regime change even if they disagreed with the revolution. Even people who criticize us, those people supported our military.”
Pointing to Israel’s brazen assault inside Qatar this September, where it tried and failed to assassinate the entire Hamas negotiating team, Pezeshkian predicted, “Cohesion will increase across the region because our neighbors recognize that nobody is safe now.”
During Israel’s assault on Iran, the president narrowly escaped an attempt on his life. “There are plans that if they take me out” when Israel attacks again, “we have prepared five to six steps down the line.
Vowing that Islamic Republic was ready for all contingencies, Pezeshkian sounded a confident note: “Iran is not Gaza. Iran is not Lebanon. Iran is not Syria. Iran is something different.”