tv SPOTLIGHT PRESSTV January 17, 2024 10:02pm-10:30pm IRST
10:02 pm
10:04 pm
"iran strikes in iraq, syria and pakistan have been conducted while iran has stated that it does respect all nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity, yet it will not hesitate to act militarily if its own national security is threatened. has iran acted within the rules of international law, deterrance and defense of its own security? iran has been a victim of terrorism though since the early days after the victory of the islamic revolution. the most recent terrorist attack hit karman almost two weeks ago, claiming..." than 90 lives, many iranians, beat ordinary people, officials and nuclear scientists, have fallen victim to foreign-back terrorist attacks. in this edition of the spotlight, we will look at those who have acted against iran, now and in the past, like israel and the us, we have back terrorist groups committing terrorist acts against iran. first let me introduce our guest for this edition of the program. yusuf azizi is an international affairs expert who joins us from washington dc. also joining us
10:05 pm
is shabir rizy who's a political commentator joining us from chicago. gentlemen, welcome to you both. i'll start with you, yoseph azizi. um, we're looking at uh, the uh situation with irgc that has has targeted three countries, and i'm going to start with that, but move into the bigger picture of how um iran has uh not only been a victim of terrorism, but the... and uh terrorist activities exercised on iran back by uh some other countries, so let's look at iraq now, of um, where we're looking at the iraqi kurdistan region of our bill, this is a site that israel used to spy basically uh covert operations, but in particular the focus was iran and it was used by masad, supported terrorist and uh obviously led to destabilizing activities, and it wasn't the first time the... has targeted that, we also
10:06 pm
had some news that uh there were some musad agents that were uh taken out as a result, what do you think about the fact that iran has struck this uh site and uh taken out what has been as i stated these anti-bond terrorist activities nature? i think the most important message of iran attack on iraqi kurdistan uh is about uh showing that iran doesn't hesitate to... extend its exercise of security right, which means that the kind of fragile state or the kind of region that it is a battlefield for intelligence maneuver of most of the region countries, regional powers and global powers like iraq kurdistan, iran doesn't hesitate to move act boldly and militarily against any threat. that conducted
10:07 pm
directly or indirectly from there, mean that you know it's it's a kind of head source of the intelligence movement by ' musad intelligence or other countries global powers intelligence in in iraq kurdistan, so it it gives a really considerable message to israel, to united states, to england that um iran is not just committed the right of its um the self determination and something like that inside its border, it would go, it will go um out. border to maintain and make sure that there is no threat coming inside the country from their um non-stable neighborhood uh, but the mere fact and and i'm going to stick with just one more uh question on this
10:08 pm
shabri when it comes to this particular building that the musad used uh is the fact that this was actually training grounds for terrorists and one of the most notable ones uh in terms of the terrorist act that they carried out was a against the lady one nuclear scientist mos and it's not the first time and of course in the bigger picture and your your opinion matters here is how israel is known to support anti-iran terrorist groups such as the mujah organization um so was iran within its rights to defend its national uh security really by targeting this uh particular site? i think iran was completely within its rights to target these uh these these sites of terrorist activities, particularly mosad, and mosad's, number one mission for anyone who's been paying attention since the islamic revolution is to you know curtail the islamic revolution of iran is to you become a direct threat to uh iran and as you said destabilize it, if if i
10:09 pm
knew that my neighbor was planning to attack me tomorrow, if i knew that my neighbor was trying to assemble weaponry and carry out hits against me and that this attack is imminent because of past precedent. and what they're saying within their own political realm, then it would be irresponsible of me to not do anything about it knowing that my family is with me, knowing that maybe even young children live with me, it's a direct threat to me, this person is literally holding knife to me saying, i'm going to stab you, why aren't you fighting it back? so what the irgc did was absolutely within the realms of national defense, it's meeting the needs of its people, and i would say, i would even go far as saying it's doing the region a favor. "we all know that israel is a direct threat to the region, we all know that israel carries out these destabilizing operations against states that don't want to normalize with it, so by taking out these masad cells, by taking out these intelligence operations and these acts of terrorist activity, iran is done the entire region a solid favor. iran
10:10 pm
has shared intelligence with iraq about what is said with the activities of the israeli agency, intelligence agency musad, yusuf azizi and on expanding further. what uh shabir risby said is that iran is not after having its relationship with the respective countries uh to be impacted by it, but rather to take out these uh malign groups, terrorist groups which would then serve not only security for that particular country, but also as our guess there mentioned for the region. do you agree with with that viewpoint? yeah, as your your guest mentioned, "the security of the region is the collective responsibility of all government the region, so it is a mutual understanding between iran and iraqi government, iran and pakistan government, and in the case of iraqi kurdistan we know that they have some some
10:11 pm
kind of autonomy, and we know that during the history, they they try to find out foreigners to help them to have more powers and powers and power, so ... it seems that israel found a relatively good friend neighbor in in in near iranian border which is the some groups in or some businessman in iraqi kurdistan and i believe that the the kind of diplomatic maneuver but by iraqi government and pakistani government they are normal they are something that uh not very serious any country should um talk against the uh kind of attacking by other countries in such manner, but but behind the scene, i'm sure that iranian security, intelligence, iranian diplomatic relation with iraq and pakistan would maintain very very good and may maybe these acts could also improve their security
10:12 pm
relation because because the the the radical group or terrorist group inside pakistan or inside iraq is not helping their government and their security as well so... "there is need uh probably in the past past years, iran and pakistani officials, iranian officials and iraqi official, they are engaging, they have been engaging in serious talk about the..." collective security, but it it needs more um, think attention, it need more energy to put uh to avoid any kind of um terrorist attack inside each of these countries. well, i'm sure there's a complex web web of relationships that exist here when it comes to the terrorist groups uh shabir rizby such as daesh khurasan, such as jchel atlan pakistan where iran uh targeted, and again um it wants uh the cordial relationship with pakistan to be uphold, but at the same time uh, we know jl is a internationally
10:13 pm
recognized terrorist group uh, so taking that group out, or not out, but targeting the positions of this group, um, again falls in line with uh the preservation of iran's national uh security, so that strike in itself um, is justified, but it comes to the relationship that these uh terrorist groups have with for example the us and israel, "there have been many linking the juicial out to israel for example. tell us to the bigger picture uh some of the instances that you see uh israel for example and terrorist groups. yes, what it comes down to primarily is going to be destabilization and primarily through economic means. for example, there have been no numerous occasions where i think i believe it was the bologistan liberation party or the bullistan liberation army rather, that has targeted several..." economic projects between pakistan and china as well as pakistan and iran a key factor to the
10:14 pm
destabilizing entire region is to attack its economic projects, specifically economic projects that link countries together, and of course these economic projects bring common prosperity to both countries, for example iran and pakistan or pakistan and china, and so what is what a what a malign actor can do is if they don't want to get their hands dirty is that they can deploy. terroristic cells, for example, these various terrorist groups to do the dirty work for them, and what that means is they'll target things like you know uh shipping docks, they'll target railroads, they'll tr, they'll target anything that's very sensitive to any border region in order to cause chaos, in order to disrupt the flow of any economic prosperity, and therefore if you hit the economy of any country, of course it's going to hurt and more people are going to be less enthusiastic to... about trade with you because they don't see you as secure partner, so when iran moves
10:15 pm
to destroy these terroristic cells, it's not only for iran's national protection, but again, like i said previously, it's for the stability of the region, the more interwoven the region is, the more cooperative it is, especially when it comes economic projects, then it doesn't need things like you know the united states which deploys things like the imf loans to pakistan in order to control. vast swass of the pakistan's government and uh it's its projects throughout the region, so again iran is doing the entire region is solid by taking care of these terroristic groups, yes couple other instances here that i'm looking at the dash terrorist attack that happened in the iranian city of afaz back in uh 2018, 24 were killed, um you're looking at um the uh other incidents in chabahar, 40 uh were killed in uh by a group called jundala you have. yusuf azizi, the us being involved either covertly or indirectly, and that's no,
10:16 pm
that's not new news to the daesh terrorist group as a whole, um, and this is something that has been ongoing, um, we can trace this as far back in terms of anti-iran activities by the us, where, can you explain to us how that works out for the us, when it comes to these terrorist groups overall, so maybe we get a bigger an idea, the bigger picture here. so the most important factor here is to destabilizing the the government of of the region, so when when you put gap, put power gap in a region like iraq, syria, afghanistan, it it it, it makes, you know, it it naturally brings some kind of radical movement, radical group, if if if we don't want to say that united directly involved in creating this or supporting this such group, but in... exactly there's no there is no question about that, so the united states,
10:17 pm
the fact that your guess talking about about the economic development, economic relation, we can see about the united states sanctioning the peace, gas pipeline between iran and pakistan, and all of these factors is because of making sure that any collective security between the regional government wouldn't happen, without maintaining the united states security, which is having the fossil fuels, the gas, the oil and everything coming through the... western countries with the cheap in the cheap money, so i think i think and also the security of israel is another factor that we can talk later about that, but but the fact is united states act in the past 20 years about the war on terror or the global or the greater middle east, all these created the the the the the power gap in the region, and and i'm sure that the only
10:18 pm
country, the soul country that you know put this gap uh... put power in this gap, maintain this gap and you know, i mean put a relation between all of the government in this region and and is a center point for the uh for the collective security in the region is iran, it it is in the history, the historical event show that the the human resources, natural resources, the geography of iran, all of these shows that iran could be the hegemon in the region and maintain the security of the region, so it is very important. understand that when the united states are looking to the east, to the china to the eastern europe, focusing on mostly on the global power politics with russia and china, and it would be some kind of um turbulence in this region like middle east, and it is in the common interest of the region to cooperate each other to maintain
10:19 pm
the security for all, well uh, the direction i was trying to go with this and maybe you can expand on this because you know it's uh um, it really sheds light uh, and again, it's not new news, but the fact that it's still ongoing uh, shibba risby is for example, the us uh, and it's a cia uh organization, or i should say, the cia um entity as a whole, who uh, basically has a classified budget, not so classified when it comes to um anti-iran operations, i mean it's been involved in many operations that that are involved against iran using different groups or people etc. in terms of financing them to basically act against iran. um, there have been many protests inside iran that have been steered, financed, uh, one way or another by some of these budgets that dispersed the money. uh, maybe you can tell us a little bit about that, because you have uh, as i'm looking at over here, many high ranking former high ranking cia officers who have basically
10:20 pm
stated what i just said. i mean, you kind of just say it, if your enemy as a budget dedicated. just to disrupt you, then you really have to look at who are the main players that are trying to get you within the region, and if you look at you know iran uh today, it's it's surrounded by some allies, but it's also surrounded by some foes, but also the allies within these regions uh do have some terroristic salves harboring uh being harbored and iran is reportedly resorted to dialogue first time and time again saying, hey pakistan, hey iraq, you have... some bad people sharing a border with us, can you please do something about it? and time and time again, iran has also stated that like, hey, these people are connected to the cia, these people are connected to mosad, you have to do something about it, and the writing is on the wall there too, they're clearly linked, there's an economic trail, a money trail that leads to the us, and since
10:21 pm
the us policy since 1979 has been to overthrow iran, to overthrow the islamic republic of iran, and as we saw in the in the foreign riot, the foreign-back riots in 2022 in iran, that the united states was happy about it, so whatever is is basically bad for iran is going to be good for the united states, so anyone who wants to lash out at iran right now uh for protecting itself should ask themselves, do you really support these terrorists who ultimately at the end of the day only serve the united states, do you want to be on the same side of the people that are financing israel by selling? iraqi assets off to the israeli regime? no, of course you don't, because these are the people that intent to destabilize the region in in order to send in their own financers, their own capitalist, take all the resources and only make themselves rich and exploit the people there. iran is the one thing, one of the few, one of the key players here that's defending the entire region from this
10:22 pm
exploitation from this invasion, and they really need to take out these terrorist uh, these terrorists all over the region that are... scattered by cia money, by musad monetions, and quite frankly, if you are against iran doing that, then you need to consider whoose side you really are on. uh, and they're continuing this in a in a rather against going against international law, yusuf, as you see, in the case of syria in particular, where the us is there illegally, has base there, the ant is famous for the fact that it's been a... used of uh training terrorists to carry out terrorist attacks inside in syria in particular, but of course we know that iran has targeted uh the terrorists there and in many areas. and uh this was something that um is very dominant on the border of syria, jordan and iraq, the terrorists move in and out of this area freely to use for whatever uh directions and
10:23 pm
orders they are being given. um, why isn't there a way to, i mean iran has acted and iran continues to, but why why does the us continue this way uh to try to uh go after um destabilizing the governments, not just syria but also iran? um, as you said, there are two uh way that you can go militarily in another country, one is the united nations security council resolution, which is not happening about the syria or iraq in 2003, invading by united states, but bush administration, and also inviting by the own government of that country that the other countries coming and help them to you know maintain the security, so in the case of syria. again the legitimate government of bashar al-assad invited iran and uh russia, not uh turkey or united states or nato, so this is very important and
10:24 pm
showing the double standard of the united states that uh when it is in their interest and they thought that their national security uh needs such a you know action against international law uh they would go, they don't need any any permission from anywhere, they do... whatever they want and in the case of iran's to act boldly against the terrorist group around its country, around its border, they said about the international law, which is which is not correct, so as you said the the in the interest of the united state, united states wanted some weak government in the region in the middle east and government that is completely under you. states influence, so the fact that the 1979 islamic revolution in iran uh completely changed this dynama in the in the region and um nowadays
10:25 pm
the the iran is is kind of um message to other countries in the region that you can uh have your independence, you can uh have your own security doctrine and economic and political doctrine inside your country and thinking about the regional security with the regional... hover not using and helping the global power uh so this is very important message that they wanted to make sure that iran also being destabilized. all right, thank you very much for that. yusuf azizi, international affairs expert from washington dc. shaber risby, political commentator from chicago, thank you to you both. with that we come to an end for this edition of world news, i'm sorry for this edition of the spotlight. uh, thank you so much for tuning in, until the next program. it's goodbye. al shifa hospital in downtown gaza city is
10:26 pm
the biggest hospital and the most important one in the strip, especially in wartime under tight sie. i want to ask everyone in the in this world, if it is this child is yours, what do you feel? i am here because the israeli occupation bombed us. this war results in high numbers of casualties, people dying every day. يا عمري يا عمري اختي حبيبتي لاسه حبيبتي عمره
10:30 pm
first of the headline stresses again that it respects other country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, but it does not sit idly by when hit by terrorist attacks. more than 160 palestinians are killed in the israel us genocidal war on the gaza. strip in a matter of one day and the un agency expresseds concerns over the quote brutal living conditions of palestinian children in the gaza strip.
11 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
Press TV (Iran) Television Archive Television Archive satellite recordings Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on