IRANIAN Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said yesterday that the threat of war against Iran and the region must be eliminated, and Tehran will never accept the cycle of war, ceasefire, negotiation, and war again.
In a televised interview, Qalibaf said: ‘We are not seeking war, but we will defend ourselves fiercely and respond firmly,’ amid a US-Israeli aggression against the country which started on February 28.
Qalibaf added that the US had expected victory within 72 hours, but instead has seen all its regional bases come under Iranian retaliatory operations, noting that ‘Trump now resorts to telling several lies a day out of desperation.’
He stated that Iran had long warned its neighbours that the US military presence would not bring them security – something now evident to them.
He predicted that countries in the region would establish an indigenous system of economic and security stability through bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
Regarding the earlier 12-day war last June, Qalibaf said Iran accepted that ceasefire only after persistent requests and its final strikes on Israel, but added: ‘They have now shown that they learned no lessons.’
Addressing recent developments in the Strait of Hormuz, the Speaker said its current closure was not Iran’s decision but a defensive necessity.
‘We never intended to target neighbouring states,’ he said, ‘but when missiles are launched toward us, it is our right to respond. Many ships no longer move because the conditions do not permit it.’
Legal and navigational arrangements in the Strait will no longer return to past conditions since ‘its previous security no longer exists.’
Qalibaf asserted that Israel had once vowed to reshape the order of West Asia through war. ‘Indeed, the region’s face and order are changing,’ he said, ‘but not under America’s dominance.’
Instead, he described a new regional security model based on indigenous cooperation among neighbouring nations.
He also warned that US and Israeli policies had destabilised not only West Asia but ‘the security of East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and even America itself.’
Highlighting the geopolitical importance of the Strait of Hormuz, Qalibaf called it ‘one of the world’s key points,’ vital for the transfer of oil and energy.
He underlined that there was a ‘strategic miscalculation’ in US involvement, saying Israel had set a trap for Washington, which ‘fell into it due to immaturity.’
Trump’s director of counter-terrorism resigns his post
The US TRUMP administration’s top official on counter-terrorism has resigned, citing opposition to the war in Iran, and urged the president to ‘reverse course’.
In a letter posted yesterday to his X account, National Counter-terrorism Centre Director Joe Kent said that Iran posed ‘no imminent threat’ to the US and claimed that the Trump administration ‘started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby’.
Kent, 45, is a US special forces and CIA veteran whose wife, navy cryptologic technician Shannon Kent, was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2019.
The letter opened: ‘President Trump, After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Centre, effective from today.
‘I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby…
‘Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.
‘This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.
‘This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again…
‘I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for.
‘The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.
‘It was an honour to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. Joseph Kent’.
