- Israelis weren't able to achieve the stated objectives of destroying Hamas, and I think they won't be able to achieve it.

Not anytime soon, and not ever.

The myth of Israeli invincibility is gone.

(light rhythmic music) - Hello, and welcome to GERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today I am bringing you a rare perspective from inside the Iranian government.

Javad Zarif is Iran's new vice president for strategic affairs.

Before that, he served for many years as the country's foreign minister.

Before that, as its representative of the United Nations.

And as you'll see from our interview, Zarif is a seasoned diplomat, educated in the West, fluent in English, and thoughtful in his responses.

He also represents a theocratic regime hostile to the West.

Here's the context of our conversation.

As the one year anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks approaches, Israel has ratcheted up its regional strikes against Iran-backed proxy forces across the Middle East.

The IDF continues to pummel Gaza and bulldoze the West Bank, as Israeli fighter jets drop hundreds of bombs in Lebanon and Yemen, targeting Hezbollah and Houthis rebels.

Just last week, Israel's government shocked the world by announcing that it had killed Hezbollah's iconic leader, Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing.

And days ago, Israeli troops entered Lebanon for the first time since 2006, in what the government is calling "limited ground offensives."

For now, at least.

And for the second time this year, Iran then launched ballistic missiles at Israel, claiming there would be more to come if Israel attacks Iran directly.

At this critical moment, much of the world, including Western allies, has condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's escalations.

While much of Israel, including the prime minister's most ardent opponents, has backed Bibi without reservation.

In fact, Netanyahu's ruling party, Likud enjoyed its first lead in the domestic polls in Israel since the October 7th attack.

Vice President Zarif, who I interviewed shortly before the news of Nasrallah's assassination broke, said that Iran will not fall into what he called "Israel's trap."

And in the days since we spoke, the response from his government and its regional proxy forces has been tepid at best.

Iran's new president, the former cardiac surgeon who beat out a field of hard liners in the election, has bowed to try to find common ground with the West.

He's clearly uneasy about escalating things further.

But how far can Iran bend before it snaps?

And what happens then?

I can't say for sure, but have no doubt, it will involve the United States.

And by the way, isn't there an election coming up here sometime soon?

I'll get into all that and more.

And don't worry, I've also got your "Puppet Regime."

- Good morning.

Pleasure to be here.

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Commercial Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains, with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Announcer] And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and- (uplifting music) - Vice President, Zarif.

Welcome to GZERO World.

- Good to be with you.

- There's a lot to talk about in the world, in your region right now, the biggest news is that the war, which has been going on for almost a year now in Gaza, is also now threatening to explode in the so-called Northern Front in Lebanon.

How do you relate to this intensification of the conflict?

- My analysis of the war in Gaza was that Israel lost in two fronts.

One was its invincibility.

The Israeli narrative in our region was that Israeli army is invincible.

And it has proven itself to be invincible in every fight that it had with formal armies, seven days, 20 days, it won.

- The various wars over the past decades.

- Yeah, decades.

- Egypt, Lebanon, you name it.

- Egypt.

Yeah.

This time was different.

- You mean specifically on October 7th?

- Yeah, October 7th and afterwards.

It was different, and Israelis weren't able to achieve the stated objectives of destroying Hamas.

And I think they won't be able to achieve it.

Not any time soon, not ever, in my view.

So the myth of Israeli invincibility is gone.

And I think that's a major loss for Israel.

And I believe, I mean, I analyze in my analysis, and it's simply to understand, not to condone, certainly I won't condone it, but the amount of violence Israel is conducting against civilians, which is horrible, is because it wants to somehow restore that invincibility through fear and through intimidation.

Won't happen.

- Today, I mean, you're giving me the Iranian perspective, the Israeli perspective is very different.

So for example, Netanyahu's Likud party for the first time since October 7th, is now polling ahead of the other parties.

They believe that they have nearly destroyed Hamas' military leadership, its capabilities, its tunnels.

Of course, their political leader, when he was in Tehran for the Iranian inauguration, they also clearly assassinated.

So their narrative is very different.

- The terrorism doesn't give you invincibility.

And I think, that is the perception, they're fooling themselves.

The perception in the Arab world is certainly not that.

And the Arabs have a new confidence that they can withstand Israeli military might.

And I think that's important.

That's a psychological condition, not a real condition on the ground.

But even if you talk about the real condition on the ground, Hamas's military, I mean, a lot of dead, 41,000 people killed, I mean, destruction all over the place, but Hamas is still capable of inflicting heavy damage on Israel.

- Do you believe, in terms of the broader Palestinian cause, which of course is getting a lot more attention today than it was before October 7th, from everywhere, I mean, in my country, in your country, in the Gulf, everywhere- - You remember, Netanyahu came before the General Assembly of the United Nations last year, just a few days before October 7th, and showed a map in which there was no Palestine.

And and he said, "Our relations with the rest of the Arab world, 98% of the Arab world is gonna be good.

And the 2%," meaning Palestinians, "can do whatever they want."

That was the perception that he had at that time.

And I think for the Palestinians, it was a matter of life and death.

And that is why anybody who says, is the cost of so many casualties worth it?

I tell them that this is up to the Palestinians to decide.

But you gotta put them yourself in their shoes and see the situation they were living under, a big open prison in Gaza.

- In Gaza, yeah.

- And the fact that they were being forgotten.

Now, as you say, and rightly so, Palestinian issue is top on the agenda of the international community once again after so many years.

And I think that's important.

So my second point, and I told you, Israel has lost on two grounds.

One is invincibility, and the second thing was victimization.

Israel presented itself as the victim, victim of Holocaust, victim of terrorism- - Victim of antisemitism, which is growing around the world.

- Antisemitism.

Now, it lost that with the hospital.

Until the hospitals that victimization could- - You're talking about the hospitals that have been- - Bombed the Shifa Hospital in Gaza- - [Ian] That was bombed by Israel at the beginning of the war.

- [Javad] At the beginning of the war- - [Ian] And since then.

Again, which they claim were Hamas operatives on the ground.

- So now we have Israel losing the two pillars of its policy: invincibility, victimization.

And now the Israeli narrative on foreign policy is gone.

It cannot be restored.

At least until now, it hasn't been able to restore it.

And that is the reason for this huge violence that Israeli is pushing both in Gaza and in Lebanon.

Now in Lebanon, I think it's even more dangerous, because- - Because Hezbollah has much greater military capabilities, - Much greater military capability, and it has exercised a lot of restraint.

And once it stop exercising restraint, then you can have another war, which would be much different than the war in Gaza.

And that is why it will be prudent for the international community to take serious action, the action that has failed to take over the past 11 months- - In Gaza.

- In Gaza, in order to end this.

Now, Gaza was a humanitarian catastrophe.

- Is.

- It continues to be a humanitarian catastrophe.

This can be a security catastrophe.

And I think the West, unfortunately, unfortunately, is less concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe than about a security catastrophe.

- When you look at Israel's relationship, you said Hezbollah has acted with restraint, Iran, to a degree, has acted with restraint, that's- - Oh, huge restraint.

- That's a debate, right?

Because you have, on the one hand, you have the axis of resistance, where there are all sorts of attacks that are growing in the Red Sea with the Houthis and others in Syria and Iraq.

On the other hand, when Israel targeted, killed a senior Iranian official in Syria, a lot of people were concerned this was gonna lead to an all-out war between Israel and Iran.

That hasn't happened when the Israelis assassinated the Hamas political leader in Tehran, so far at least, we haven't seen an Iranian response, unless I'm missing one.

- No.

You see, Iran has reserved the right to respond at the time of its choosing.

And we haven't given up that right.

It is there.

And we will choose the time to respond because that's our right, self-defense is the right that have- - So you're saying, a response will come is what you were saying.

- It may come at the time of our choosing.

However, we have exercised a great deal of restraint.

Our response to the killing of our people in Syria, the hitting of our embassy in Syria was seriously restrained, severely restrained because we knew that Israel was trapped in a box of its own making, and it wanted to get out by expanding the war and dragging the United States and Iran into this war.

And we thought that was not prudent.

And I think on that, we agreed with the United States and the rest of the international community, and that is why we exercise a lot of restraint.

Now, the restraint after the murder, assassination of the late martyr, Ismail Haniyeh- - The political leader of Hamas, who living in Qatar.

- Who was living in Qatar, came to Iran for the inauguration of our president.

And now look at it.

Anytime Iran had an opportunity to engage with the international community, Israel made sure to block it, whether it was JCPOA, whether it was Iran- - Iran and nuclear deal.

- You remember, Israeli, I mean, Netanyahu has said in his book that his first priority was to kill the deal, a deal that would've- - You know, he came to Congress and said that.

- Yeah, he said that.

I mean, he said that all along.

And that deal ostensibly prevented Iran from building a nuclear weapon that he's screaming about.

We never wanted to build a nuclear weapon.

And that is why I argue that- - And the Iranians are much closer to that weapon today.

- Because of Trump.

- Because he unilaterally pulled outta the Iranian deal.

- If we ever wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we would be very close to it today.

Now, I think this time again, when Iran with the new president was opening a greater possibility for accommodation, for cooperation- - [Ian] By the way, a new president who has said that he wants to have better relations with the United States.

- [Javad] With the rest of the world, - Including, specifically he's mentioned the United States.

- Yeah, he said that he wants to, at least, deescalate the situation with the United States.

- And that is part of your, in principle, right?

I mean, that's what your government now wants to do going forward.

- Yeah, but then they killed Haniyeh on his inauguration day in order to block that.

They've done that in the past.

You remember when Biden was elected as President, Israel increased its operations in Iran, killing one of our nuclear scientists.

So they basically, they thrive on touch, on conflict, and we will not provide it to them.

But that doesn't mean that we will fail to defend our territory, fail to defend our people, and fail to defend our guests.

- And so that helps to explain the restraint- - Yeah.

- That the Iranians are presently showing.

You don't want- - We see the plot, we see the plan.

- Yeah.

- And we don't want to fall into that plot and fall into that trap.

But that doesn't mean that we will come short of defending our territory and our nationals.

- And so I believe that however you portray the success of Iran's military capabilities, the reality is that there was a level of restraint that was clearly shown in the response.

- Exactly.

- I think we can agree on that.

- Exactly.

- I have to ask you one, I wanna move more broadly, I wanna talk about the US.

In terms of the upcoming election, I mean, clearly Iran does not have a vote, and Iran is saying that they do not want to interfere, but clearly there's a difference in orientation of US policy under a Harris administration or under a Trump administration.

Under former President Trump, Qasem Soleimani was assassinated.

He unilaterally, as we've discussed, pulled out of the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal, though he also displayed some interest in meeting with you and back at (indistinct) at the summit, Trump is someone historically that doesn't care that much about ideology, will cut a deal with pretty much anyone.

So do you see...

I mean, I understand that there are worries that the bilateral relationship could be worse, but also, for someone who wants to work more with the United States, maybe there's more potential for engagement.

How do you see it?

- Well, there is a variety of opinion in Iran about whose election would- - Benefit Iran.

- And I think the jury is out.

I mean, the last time Trump- - The military complex, the security folks prefer Trump agenda.

- Probably, I don't know, because Trump obviously carried out a heinous crime of assassinating the most revered general probably in Iranian history.

- Qasem Soleimani.

- Qasem Soleimani, good friend of mine.

And this is, I mean, nobody in Iran has any affection for President Trump or his company.

But coming to politics, politics is a nasty game.

And some may prefer him.

I certainly don't, I don't have any preference, but some may prefer him in Iran.

Some may believe that he is more international interest of Iran.

I mean, there are a lot of calculations that you can have about who will be more in the interest of Iran winning the election.

But whatever calculations that you have, whatever ideas that you have, it doesn't mean that you can interfere in the elections of another country.

- Let me ask you a couple of related questions.

So, first on Ukraine.

The Chinese position is absolutely not that the Russians are solely to blame, but they have said that they recognize and accept the territorial integrity of all of Ukraine.

- [Javad] So do we.

- [Ian] Including Crimea.

- So do we.

- [Ian] So do you?

- Iran is on the record not to accept acquisition of territory by force, by anybody.

That's our position of principle.

We have repeated that.

- So the Russian invasion was illegal.

- In our view.

But, I mean, nothing can condone an act of war.

But you have to understand it.

If you want...

I mean, international relations is not about placing blame, it is about solving issues.

And if you want to resolve the current unfortunate crisis in Ukraine, you have to understand what gave rise to it.

The minute the United States commits itself not to expand NATO, I think the war in Ukraine will end.

And I think the United States is as much to blame, if not more, than Russia.

So if we want to end the war in Ukraine, we have to understand the underlying reasons.

- We disagree on who is to blame for the invasion of Ukraine, but I would- - No, no, no, Russia is to blame for the invasion of Ukraine.

But the United States is responsible for what led to that invasion.

- I would argue that... We disagree on it.

- Okay, let's agree to disagree.

- But I am interested, yes, Iran is under a very tough sanctions regime.

You have very few choices of who you can work with, but the Iranians are engaging with Russia not just in terms of trade of goods, but also of drones, also a military cooperation, including military cooperation that is being used to help the Russians- - When you have limited avenues of trade, you don't pick and choose.

- Yeah.

So I mean, this is really a question of, you'd love to be able to do more with other countries, but absent that, if you're helping the Russians with an illegal war, you're gonna help the Russians with an illegal war.

- Our cooperation with Russia is totally legal.

We have not participated in the war efforts in Ukraine.

- [Ian] Building drone factories that Russians are using in Russia- - You see, we have limited options in foreign trade.

And the reason we have limited options in foreign trade is because the United States has illegally imposed sanctions against us in violation of UN Security Council resolution.

That's it.

- I'm not saying you don't feel like you have justification to take those steps.

I'm simply saying that the reality is this isn't just economic trade with Russia.

It is participating in the war.

- No, no, we are not participating in the war.

And we made it what- - [Ian] Made an effort to win- - No, no, we're not participating in the war effort.

We're not participating in the war.

We are simply conducting business.

- Don't you think that the United States in providing weapons to Ukraine is actually participating in the war effort?

Don't you believe that?

- Well, the United States is directly providing weapons in order for the Ukrainians to use it.

We don't.

- You don't provide drones to Russia for them to use it.

- We simply, we simply engage in an economic relations with Russia.

You see the United States is providing all the weapons to Israel to kill innocent people in Gaza.

So the United States is not in a position.

- So you would say that the US is participating in the war effort in Gaza?

- In Gaza, we say the United States is complicit in the atrocities being committed in Gaza, because the United States has the capability to end the war in Gaza and it doesn't.

Whereas Iran has said time and again that we are prepared to use whatever influence, which is limited, in order to end the war in Ukraine.

So these are two different situations.

- [Ian] So your position- - But certainly for the United States, which is actively supporting a genocide in Gaza, United States is not in a position to tell Iran who to do business with.

- Your position is that the Iranians have no complicity in the Ukraine war despite the support militarily of Iran.

- Yeah, because we don't condone the war.

- But there is military support in Iran.

- They don't military support for the war.

We simply engage in business.

- So Vice President Zarif, before I let you go, and I know we're running short on time here.

- Okay.

- You come back in a year's time at the United Nations, do you believe, whoever wins the US election, do you believe that the US-Iran relationship will be better, will be in a better position than it's right now?

- Well, certainly hope that we can contain the differences, that we can deescalate the tension, and I certainly hope that we can resume the agreement that the US broke.

- Vice President Zarif, thanks for being here.

- Thank you for inviting me.

(light music) - And now "The Puppet Regime."

We are here in New York City.

A sitting mayor has been indicted for the first time in history.

His chief nemesis couldn't be happier about it.

Roll that tape.

- New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal corruption charges, accused of illegally receiving gifts from the Turkish government.

Here to talk about it, one of the mayor's fiercest opponents, the Rat King.

Thank you, sir, for being here.

- Good morning.

Pleasure to be here.

- Sir, Mayor Adams was elected in part on a promise to kill all rats.

What went through your mind when you saw he was indicted?

- Well, look, this may surprise you, but I actually feel for the guy.

I think I understand it.

- What do you mean by that?

- I mean, I get it.

A flight to Istanbul is long.

As somebody who's used to traveling on Silk Road caravans, a transatlantic steerage, what would I not do for a lie flatbed in business class?

Who among us?

You know what that does for your back, for your tail?

And the food.

Turkish Airlines got eggplant melange, boiled shrimp, champagne, candles, hot towels.

I mean this is not a garbage bag on Grand Street at three in the morning- - sorry, lemme just cut you off there.

Are you condoning Adam's behavior here?

- I am not condoning, I am, however, leaving as I need to make sure that the filthy new kebab joint on King's Highway passes health inspection.

♪ Public regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

If like what you see, or even if you don't, but you're sick of hiding underneath your bed, why don't you check out gzeromedia.com?

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (bright music) - [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Commercial Narrator] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains, with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Announcer] And by Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

Cox is working to create an impact in areas like sustainable agriculture, clean tech, healthcare, and more.

Cox, a family of businesses.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and- (uplifting music) (dramatic music)