Seyed Mohammad Marandi, head of the North American Studies Department at Tehran University. Photo: Yu Jincui/GT

Editor's Note: 

The US and Iran are now engaged in their most serious confrontation since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Recent days have seen the US kill Iranian military General Qasem Soleimani and Iran fire back with a missile barrage in Iraq. Where will the US-Iran tensions head? How will the US-Iran confrontation influence the Middle East? Global Times (GT) reporter Yu Jincui talked to Seyed Mohammad Marandi (Marandi), head of the North American Studies Department at Tehran University, on these issues.

GT: What does the US killing of Iranian general Soleimani mean to Iran? After the attacks on US bases, will Iran's retaliation come to an end? Or what other actions could Iran take amid escalating tensions?

Marandi: This has united the Iranian people more than ever before against the US, but also it has united the Iraqi people against the US. At the funerals in both Iran and Iraq, there were huge crowds and it shows that General Soleimani was very popular. In Iraq, the Iranian commander is considered a hero against ISIS. So, this has caused the Iraqi people to hate the US and the occupation and the Iraqi Parliament to call for the US to leave. And I think that if the US does not leave Iraq, there will be violence and they will be forced to leave.

GT: The US Ambassador to the UN said the US stands "ready to engage without pre-conditions" in serious negotiations with Iran. Will Iran consider having negotiations with the US? Or under what conditions will Iran agree to talk?

Marandi: Iran will not negotiate with the US until the US accepts the nuclear deal, abides by the nuclear deal and compensates for the act of war that it carried out at Baghdad International Airport.

GT: The US moved to impose additional economic sanctions on Iran. Has Iran prepared itself for that? 

Marandi: There's nothing more for the Americans to sanction. This is propaganda. They sanctioned everything that they can sanction already before last year. And all the new sanctions are just a repeat of the old sanctions. There's nothing new about them. The US sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy. But now after a year and a half, the Iranian economy is beginning to grow again. And this ugly and inhumane economic warfare that the Americans have imposed on Iranian women and children will not succeed. 

GT: Iran said it will not respect any limits established in the 2015 nuclear deal. In your opinion, can the deal still be saved? What role do you think China can play in saving it?

Marandi: The Iranians were the only side that was abiding by the deal for a year and a half and now they are only decreasing their commitment to put pressure on European countries to abide by the deal. At the moment, Iran is still abiding by the most important part of the deal, meaning the International Atomic Energy Agency's access to Iran's nuclear program. So, what China can do is ignore the US and not bow to American pressure and continue importing oil from Iran and doing trade as usual so that the US will know that it cannot bully an independent country. Iran hasn't left the deal yet.

GT: Where do you think the US-Iran tensions will head? How will it influence the Middle East situation?

Marandi: The US cannot win in this region. It has already failed. Also, Iran has many powerful allies across the region such as in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. And Iran has control over the Persian Gulf. And as we saw at the funeral, the Iranian people and Iraqi people are united against the US. The US violates international law, is an occupier in Iraq, it murders people, carries out acts of war, ignores and humiliates the Iraqi government, and it ignores its commitments to Iraq. So, the only way out for the US is for it to behave like a normal country.

GT: Trump said the killing of Soleimani would deter future attacks and help make the Middle East safer. However, many observers believe the killing of Soleimani brought about results contrary to what Trump said. Do you think the US has a clear Middle East strategy?

Marandi: The US is very arrogant. It has committed an act of war against Iran by murdering a senior Iranian official and committed an act of war against Iraq by also killing a senior Iraqi official at the Baghdad International Airport. 

What the Iraqi Prime Minister said in Parliament revealed that the Trump administration is lying. The Iraqi Prime Minister said that General Soleimani was visiting Iraq to see him and to talk about a letter from Saudi Arabia, because the Iraqi Prime Minister wanted to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq's Prime Minister said Trump knew that and thanked him for the mediation.

GT: Soleimani was an important figure in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group. How will his death influence the counter-terrorism drive in the Middle East?

Marandi: The Americans do not want ISIS to be defeated. General Soleimani was the most important person who fought against ISIS in the world. He helped defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq. And the US and its allies were helping ISIS in the early years in Syria - we know this from WikiLeaks documents; we know it from the 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency document; we know it from Joe Biden's speech at Harvard in 2014; we know it from Hillary Clinton and her email that said Saudi Arabia and Qatar were supporting ISIS. We know that the Americans were helping create the extremist group so that they could overthrow the Syrian government. Iran fought ISIS and general Soleimani fought ISIS from the beginning. Iranians will continue to fight ISIS, despite the fact that the Americans are killing Iranian soldiers, Iraqi soldiers, and Syrian soldiers that are fighting ISIS.