Does Iran want war? Or is it trying to avoid war? Western officials have long claimed that Iran stands behind instability in the Middle East as it funds Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, and the Houtis in Yemen.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that Iran does not seek a wider war in the Middle East and that such a conflict would have no winners.
"We don't want war. ... We want to live in peace," Pezeshkian told reporters during a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting.
"We don't wish to be the cause of instability in the region."
Pezeshkian called for dialogue to resolve the volatile situation in the Middle East and blamed Israel for stoking tensions and instigating conflict, citing assassinations in Tehran and elsewhere that he said Israel had carried out.
Immediately after his inauguration, the visiting political chief of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in an operation in Tehran that was widely attributed to Israel.
Iran has vowed vengeance over the killing of Haniyeh. The attack, Pezehskian affirmed, "will not go unanswered," though he cautioned against actions that could be viewed as escalatory on the part of his government as "we do not wish to be the cause of instability in the region" and "everyone loses" if such a war erupts.
He argued that Haniyeh's killing and other actions attributed to Israel "were traps laid by Israel in order to cowardly drag us in" to a regional conflict looming over the ongoing war in Gaza. The Iranian president also cast blame on the United States for its repeated promises of peace despite Israel-Hamas negotiations apparently remaining deadlocked.
Interestingly, Pezeshkian told reporters that "we are willing to put all of our weapons aside, so long as Israel is willing to do the same".
The question is whether this means Iran is willing to shut down its nuclear weapons program, as well as its ballistic missile program - both of which have one purpose only - which is to attack Israel and other western countries.
Pezeshkian complained that some countries [the United States and some European countries] have become increasingly involved in regional affairs, asserting that "we cannot have outside actors come in, arm one side to the teeth and prevent the other side from having the means to defend themselves".
What this means is that he wants countries to stop arming Israel so that Iran can finally destroy it.
But Pezeshkian is smooth. He knows how to say things that sound reasonable.
"We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict," Pezeshkian said.
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