Trita Parsi

This is a long standing framing that they have.

They want to put the blame on this on Israel and essentially say, why is the U.S.

attacking Iran?

There's no enmity that necessitates this type of a conflict.

This is all because of Israel.

On the other hand, you have Kalibov, the Speaker of the Parliament, who's now emerged as one of the

last standing most powerful men in that system, who issued a long tweet this morning in which he talked about how he lost his brother in the Iraq-Iran war.

He himself volunteered at the age of 18 in that war.

And that, you know, these are losses that he still feels today.

But this is the type of sacrifices the Iranians will make for their soil, for their homeland, and that they are ready.

And he ends it with saying, bring it on.

So they're sending two messages.

On the one hand, they don't want any enmity.

They don't understand why the U.S.

is doing this.

They believe it's because of Israel.

But on the other hand, if the U.S.

goes in with troops, the Iranians will fight to the last ounce of their being.

I think it's quite certain that it is Israel that is behind us, just as much as Israel has been behind most of these other assassinations.

Perhaps there's intelligence that they get from the United States, but they're the ones who have been conducting these assassinations.