Democratic Senator says Iran remains Mideast peace spoiler

The United States’ measures in the Caribbean and Latin America, particularly its latest military activities targeting Venezuela, are destabilizing and tension-provoking, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said.

The US military has conducted four lethal strikes in the Caribbean following its buildup of naval forces, part of what President Donald Trump has described as an “armed conflict” against drug cartels.

The Venezuelan government insists that Washington is using the fight against drug trafficking merely as a pretext for its military operation.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman disputed the Trump administration’s claim that the targets were drug cartels, saying the US was actually attacking “fishing boats.”

He warned about the consequences of what he called Washington's continued lawlessness and aggressive unilateralism for global peace and stability.

The government of Nicolás Maduro, a close ally of Tehran, on Thursday urged the United Nations Security Council to hold an emergency session over recent US military operations in waters near Venezuela’s coast, citing “mounting threats” from Washington following the US strikes.

Venezuela submitted the request in a letter to Russia’s ambassador to the UN and current Security Council president, Vassily Nebenzia, accusing the Trump administration of attempting to overthrow President Maduro and of endangering “peace, security, and stability at the regional and international levels.”

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman urged the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General to pay immediate attention to what he called the dangerous situation created by the United States’ insistence on illegal interference in the internal affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, a sovereign member of the United Nations.

He also denounced the US threats to use force against Venezuela’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, calling these actions a blatant violation of the principles of the UN Charter and the fundamental rules of international law, according to a foreign ministry statement.

In a televised address a day after his government approved a deal to free hostages and end the fighting, Netanyahu said the campaign’s objectives went beyond Gaza. “I firmly rejected all the pressure because I had one consideration in mind — the security of Israel,” he said.

“That meant achieving the goals of the war: freeing the hostages, eliminating the nuclear and ballistic threat from Iran that endangered our existence, and breaking the Iranian axis, of which Hamas is a central part,” he said.

“Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime, and Iran are all under one umbrella,” he said. “But despite the pressure, we stood firm and acted solely for the security of Israel.”

A day earlier, Iran said it supported the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire and any initiative that would end what it called Israel’s ‘genocidal war’ and secure Palestinian rights. The foreign ministry said Tehran backed efforts leading to “the withdrawal of occupying forces, the entry of humanitarian aid, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the realization of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.”

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  Iran-aligned armed groups stronger despite Gaza ceasefire, Iranian MP says

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  Iran backs end of 'genocidal' Gaza war in cautious blessing of Trump deal

Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said Tehran would support any lasting peace that benefits Palestinians, while a conservative lawmaker voiced a tougher line, saying Iran-aligned armed groups would keep up their operations against Israel and the United States despite the ceasefire.

Behnam Saeedi, secretary of Iran’s parliament national security commission, told local media that “groups in the resistance front are today stronger and more active than two years ago against America and Israel.” He dismissed US President Donald Trump’s peace plan as unreliable, saying any deal that undermines Palestinian sovereignty “is doomed to fail.”

The ceasefire agreement, reached under a 20-point US proposal backed by Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, includes the release of hostages and prisoners, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from parts of Gaza, and the entry of humanitarian aid.

The two-year Gaza conflict triggered a wider regional war that pitted Israel and the United States against Iran and its allies. Tehran and its partners suffered heavy losses during that period, including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the fall of Syria’s Assad government, and Israeli and US strikes that crippled Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in June.

“I’m not able to confirm that the Secretary-General would ever have said that,” UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told reporters in New York. He said Aref appeared to be referring to an August meeting in Turkmenistan and pointed to the UN readout from August 5 as the accurate record.

Aref told Iranian state media that Guterres had said “the file of overthrowing the establishment was closed after the 12-day war.” He did not say when or where the conversation took place.

Guterres has made no such remark publicly. During the June conflict, he said on X that he was “gravely alarmed” by the use of force by the United States against Iran, calling it a dangerous escalation and a threat to international peace.

The 12-day war began with Israeli strikes that killed Iranian nuclear scientists and ended with US bombings of three key nuclear sites.

Aref spoke days after US President Donald Trump warned Washington would strike Iran again if it restarted its nuclear program. Speaking at a Navy anniversary event in Virginia, Trump called the June 22 airstrikes “perfectly executed” and said Tehran had been weeks from building a nuclear weapon.

Iran says it does not seek confrontation but will respond if attacked. Aref said the conflict showed US forces “could not achieve their objectives.”

The remarks came as Britain, France and Germany moved to reimpose UN sanctions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.

Mojtaba Zonouri, a member of parliament from Qom, said on Friday the measure on joining the UN Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) remains suspended in parliament, and that a “triple-urgency motion” submitted by Tehran lawmaker Malek Shariati is under review to prevent it from taking effect.

“As long as we are forced to bypass sanctions to meet the country’s needs, joining the CFT is like putting a rope around our own necks,” Zonouri said, according to Iranian media. He added that Iran could join the convention only “when sanctions are fully lifted.”

His remarks come after Iran’s Expediency Council — the body overseen by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that resolves disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council — conditionally approved the country’s accession to the UN convention earlier this month, after years of delay.

The CFT, one of the 49 measures linked to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, requires countries to track and report financial transactions to combat money laundering and terror financing. Hardliners argue that joining would expose Iran’s financial channels used to evade sanctions and support allied armed groups across the Middle East.

The conditional approval followed the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran on September 28 under the nuclear deal’s snapback mechanism. In April, over 150 lawmakers had urged the Council to reject the convention until “the risk of renewed sanctions is entirely eliminated.”

The United States has long accused Tehran of using its regional allies to fund and coordinate attacks across the region, labeling Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism for 39 consecutive years.

In the 1975 conversation with celebrated Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, then editor of Al-Ahram, the Shah boasted about Iran’s military buildup, including air defenses capable of striking targets a few hundred kilometers beyond Iranian airspace.

“We wish to be powerful in the region where we live,” he told Heikal, adding that “no government would base its defensive policy” on appearing weak—a line that now echoes in the rhetoric of Iran’s current leadership.

The interview was republished by the Khabar Online news outlet, which is close to Ali Larijani, a veteran political insider, Iranian security chief and confidante of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Tehran has stepped up visual references to Iran's mythical and pre-Islamic past since a punishing June war with Israel in the United States, in a move once unthinkable for the imagery's association with the ousted monarchy.

Likely a bid to bolster popular support, the strategy had previously stopped short of outright references to the royal family.

“The military force we are building is meant to confront those who threaten us,” the Shah, who was dethroned in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, said.

“I do not want Iran to have a nuclear bomb for two reasons,” he continued. “One is the cost, and the other is that we do not have the means—such as ships or missiles—to carry the bomb to its target.”

Yet he added pointedly: “If someone comes out of the bush and wants to have a nuclear bomb in this region, Iran should undoubtedly have one of those bombs too.”

Curious timing

Khabar Online said the remarks were part of a broader exchange reflecting Iran’s growing self-assertion during the oil-boom years.

Like other encounters between the late Shah and media figures such as Mike Wallace, Oriana Fallaci and Barbara Walters, Heikal’s questioning was probing—and the Shah relished the opportunity to rebut his interviewer.

At one point, he scolded Heikal for misnaming the Persian Gulf and “misstating facts” about Iran, a scene that captured his combative, self-assured style.

“The Shahanshah was very serious in his statements and he believed in what he said,” Heikal later recalled, deploying a term meaning king of kings. “I did not expect that, and I did not have an answer to convince him.”

The Shah, aware of Heikal’s ties to Egypt’s late president Gamal Abdel Nasser and his sympathy for Iran’s ousted premier Mohammad Mossadegh, used the interview to frame Iran as a regional power surrounded by covetous rivals.

“We wish to have good ties with the Arab world,” he told Heikal, comparing Iran’s armed forces to “a lock on a door” and describing deterrence as “an opportunity for our friends and anyone else who wishes to help us.”

On Israel and Iran’s future

In another passage that might resonate in Tehran today, the Shah dismissed Israeli criticism while cautioning its leaders against overreach.

“The Israeli press are the only ones that heavily attack us,” he said. “But we are not bothered by that. We have told Israeli leaders they cannot occupy the entire Arab world … but the Israelis do not take any advice.”

In the West, the interview is remembered less for its atomic undertones than for the Shah’s sweeping ambition.

“I want the standard of living in Iran in ten years’ time to be exactly on a level with that in Europe today,” he said. “In twenty years’ time we shall be ahead of the United States.”

Half a century later, its selective resurrection serves as a reminder that Tehran’s language of power transcends time—and the ruler’s outfit.