SNEAKO Interviews Professor Marandi: Iran Saves the World

TL;DR

Iranian academic Professor Marandi argues Iran is the sole state actively opposing Western imperialism and genocide, defending its nuclear program, governance, and Axis of Resistance.

Key Points

• 1.The nuclear weapons claim is a 40-year-old propaganda loop. Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed Iran is weeks or months from a bomb, yet the IAEA states there is no indication Iran ever developed a nuclear weapon, and US intelligence confirms Iran halted any such program after 2003 due to a fatwa.
• 2.Iran's real 'sin' is independence, not nuclear ambition. Marandi argues the West cycles through excuses — nuclear program, missiles, terrorism, human rights — because Iran refuses to submit to imperial control, not because of any genuine threat.
• 3.Hezbollah's northern front campaign is framed as a sacrifice to protect Gaza. By opening a second front on Israel's northern border since October 2023, Hezbollah drew Israeli forces away from Gaza at enormous cost to itself, Lebanon's civilians, and its own fighters.
• 4.Marandi positions Iran as a cross-sectarian liberation supporter, not a Shia project. He cites Iran's support for Sunni Palestinians, Bosnia (non-Shia), Cuba, Venezuela, and Nelson Mandela's early post-prison visit to Iran as evidence the Islamic Republic backs oppressed peoples globally regardless of religion.
• 5.The 1953 CIA-backed coup and SAVAK explain the 1979 embassy takeover. After the US overthrew Mosaddegh for nationalizing oil, reinstalled the Shah, and helped create the SAVAK secret police, revolutionary students seized the US embassy fearing a repeat coup — the hostage crisis was a response, not an origin.
• 6.Iran's post-revolution literacy and development record is cited as evidence against the 'mad mullah' narrative. Female illiteracy was ~60% nationally and over 90% in villages before 1979; a national literacy campaign raised the rate to roughly 90% within a decade despite a simultaneous war with Saddam Hussein.
• 7.Iran's government is dominated by engineers, doctors, and lawyers, not clerics. The current president is a heart surgeon; the cabinet contains no clerics; parliament is overwhelmingly professionals; the martyred Supreme National Security Council chair was a University of Tehran professor specializing in Kantian western philosophy.
• 8.Women hold leadership roles throughout Iranian academia and industry. Marandi states his faculty dean has been a woman for 18 of his roughly 22-year career; Iran has women pilots, truck drivers, scientists, and armed forces members, contradicting Western depictions.
• 9.The Iranian diaspora opposing the Islamic Republic is partly explained by payroll and propaganda. Marandi describes a Persian-language media empire — hundreds of outlets, TV channels, troll farms including a 4,000-person MEK operation in Albania — funded by the US and European governments to manufacture anti-Iran sentiment.
• 10.Marandi has a verified, paid-partnership Twitter bounty on his head that the platform refuses to remove. A tweet openly fundraising to kidnap him (implying torture and death) has remained up for over six days despite thousands of complaints, while his own tweets showing killed Palestinian children have been censored.
• 11.Trump's claim that Iran gifted eight oil tankers is denied outright. Marandi says a few tankers were released to Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, and India — three were seized by India at US behest and later released — none had anything to do with a US deal or peace gesture.
• 12.The opening Israeli airstrike that killed 168 girls at the Manoob school was intentional, Marandi insists. First-wave targets are vetted over months; the school had been there for years and housed children of naval officers; Trump then falsely blamed Iran despite Iran not yet firing back, which Marandi calls a textbook example of 47 years of fabricated anti-Iran narratives.