The Electronic Intifada Podcast 13 June 2025
“They bombed the apartment buildings in our neighborhood, as well as neighborhoods that are not far off,” the University of Tehran professor and geopolitical analyst added.
“We began to see similar scenes that we’ve been seeing in Lebanon and in Gaza,” Marandi said, referring to “children thrown out of buildings.”
The special livestream hosted by this writer took place as people across the region waited for what Tehran vowed would be a “crushing” retaliation to the massive and ongoing Israeli attack that began in the early hours of Friday.You can watch the whole interview in the video at the top of this article.
Not long after the Livestream concluded, Iran began its promised retaliation against Israel, with waves of ballistic missiles, some making direct hits in Tel Aviv. At least 40 people were injured, according to initial Israeli reports.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond noted military sites in and around Tel Aviv that were nearly hit in October, including the Mossad and Shin Bet spy agencies.
This writer witnessed Iranian missiles and apparent attempts to intercept them from the Jordanian capital Amman. US officials told media that American forces were helping Israel to intercept missiles.Iran confirmed it had begun its retaliatory strikes, but said it would provide more details later.
Senior Iranian officials killed
Israel’s attacks on Iran targeted Iran’s top military leadership, killing several senior officers, including armed forces chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri and chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Major General Hossein Salami.
Several senior scientists were also killed in the Israeli attacks which, as well as residential neighborhoods, targeted nuclear and military sites, and left 78 people dead and more than 300 injured.
Netanyahu stated that the attacks would continue for “as many days as it takes.”
“So it’s a dark day without a doubt, and I think it’s clear that it was a mistake that these commanders and government officials were exposed,” Marandi acknowledged.
“Iran now has to regroup, and the military has to prepare itself,” Marandi said. “And I think in the hours ahead, we’re going to see an offensive posture – the Iranians will start striking.”
That prediction proved accurate.
Marandi dismissed Israeli claims that Iran had already begun its retaliation much earlier in the day.
Tel Aviv claimed earlier on Friday that Iran had launched 100 drones towards Israel in an initial response, and that its air force was shooting them down.
Jordan also announced that its air force had intercepted several missiles and drones that entered Jordanian airspace, but did not say where they came from.
“No drones were fired from Iran,” Marandi said. “It is possible that a handful of drones were launched by Iraq, by the resistance in Iraq.”
In a bizarre statement early on Friday, Germany’s foreign ministry supported Israel’s attack on Iran, claiming that the aggression was justified by Tel Aviv’s “right to defend its existence and the security of its citizens.”
Falsely asserting that “Iran is responding with hundreds of drone attacks on Israel,” the Berlin government added, “We strongly condemn the indiscriminate Iranian attack on Israeli territory.”That condemnation of an non-existent Iranian retaliation came hours before Iran actually began its response with ballistic missiles, not drones.
“Israel’s strikes on Iran are a prohibited use of force under article 2(4) of the UN Charter, an armed attack under article 51 giving Iran a right of self-defense and likely an international crime of aggression by Israeli leaders,” according to Ben Saul, chair of international law at the University of Sydney, who also serves as the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism
Iran has capacity to retaliate
Iran’s major military assets – its vast arsenal of drones and ballistic missiles, “really haven’t been touched,” Marandi asserted. He also warned that if the United States gets directly involved, the conflict could widen regionally with Iran striking US military bases and other assets across the Persian Gulf.
“It’s not very wide, and Iran has huge quantities of missiles and drones,” Marandi said. “So the smart thing would be for the United States to stay out,” Marandi added, noting that such a conflict could cause a global economic crisis.
But, Marandi said, US President Donald Trump “is increasingly exposing the role he has played.”
“Peace President” Trump stokes flames of war
Earlier on Friday, Trump expressed full support for Israel’s attack in a post on his Truth Social website – an extraordinary position when the United States is engaged in what are supposed to be good-faith negotiations with Iran over a new nuclear deal.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump wrote.
The president stated: “I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come – And they know how to use it.”
“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse,” Trump threatened.
“There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end.”
In response to Trump’s declaration, broadcaster Andrew Napolitano, a former Fox News host and long-time personal friend of Trump, quipped sarcastically, “The ‘Peace President.’”
But if this is supposed to be a negotiating tactic aimed at getting Iran to buckle to American and Israeli demands – such as giving up its uranium enrichment program – it will backfire, according to Marandi.Trying to deal with Trump is “pretty useless,” Marandi said. “The United States constantly shifts its position.”
For Marandi, the nuclear issue is in any case a pretext for Israeli and US hostility, aggression and attempts at regime change.
Targeting support for Palestine
“These attacks on Iran have nothing to do with the nuclear program. They have nothing to do with … terrorism or human rights or global warming,” Marandi said. “They have to do with Iran’s position on Palestine” and its support for the resistance there.
Iran has long had the capability of building nuclear weapons, but has made a strategic choice not to possess them, according to Marandi – in part for moral reasons and in part not to fuel a regional arms race.“But if this continues – if they attack our nuclear sites, then Iran’s nuclear doctrine will change,” Marandi warned.
If Iran does adopt nuclear weapons, the US-backed Israeli attack could end up producing the very thing it is supposedly intended to prevent: a nuclear-armed Iran.
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.
Tamara Nassar and Eli Gerzon produced this episode and Michael F. Brown provided pre-production support.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
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