Tehran University’s Professor Mohammad Marandi joins us for Episode 275 of KK&F, part of our extended coverage of the U.S.’s war on Iran. Through his roles in the Obama-era JCPOA negotiations and the Iranian delegation to Islamabad peace talks, Professor Marandi has important insight into the current conflict. Guided by his critique of the Trump regime’s dangerous bad-faith acting during peace talks, and by his overall analysis of the U.S.’s destructive presence in Iran, we discuss the current situation, its links to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and its future. Watch below:

Professor Marandi is here to tell us why Trump’s war on Iran is and will be a failure. That war began over a month ago, reflecting Trump’s willingness — eagerness — to go against the law and the demands of the American people to pursue bloody imperialist conflict. As we’ve discussed before on the show, the shambolic leadership of this administration has enabled the war to spiral out of Trump’s control just as it has caused mass devastation in Iran: it’s not a popular war by any means. And Professor Marandi offers insight into why, in Tehran, the prevailing perception of this war is that it is a loss for the U.S. He imagines that even Trump’s generals warned him about the senseless strategy (or lack thereof) that he has now pursued. At this point, we’re watching the U.S. self-destruct in its pursuit of maximum bloodshed and maximum “victory.

We also discuss the timeframe of Trump’s escalating threats against Iran. Islamophobia has always been a central political stance for Trump from the first days of his presidency; he’s always been a maniac, we note, but in recent months we’ve seen his hatred reach a fever pitch. Easter Sunday found him posting on Truth Social with a screed doubling as a threat: that he would send Iran to hell. Shortly thereafter, he threatened Iran with total destruction in one of the most chilling statements made by an American president: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, just referred to the war as “a gift to the world.” The Trump admin’s relish of a genocidal project in Iran, in other words, seems limitless. And we also connect that to a bigger failure on the global scale: other countries, watching the U.S. launch a campaign of destruction, have not spoken out. The lack of outrage, in powerful and wealthy countries like Italy and the U.K., refuse to put any pressure on the U.S. to end the war. And that’s what enables Professor Marandi to say, in what will be a major focus of conversations to come: “This is far bigger than Trump.”

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