NCRI – Regarding Iranian regime’s internal crisis and costly intervention in Syria and other countries in the region, Velayati, adviser to Khamenei, said: “What is happening in the region is a prelude for destruction of the Islamic Republic in Iran.”
In a TV show on Sunday, November 6, the TV host asked that some people raise an issue and say that our presence in Iraq and Syria is not so much in favor of the system (regime). They say that it has some costs for us and not so much in the interests of our national security. What is your opinion in this regard? In response, Velayati noted the regime’s need for intervention in Syria and said: “We do this (intervention in Syria) in fact to prevent what happened to us after (during) the 8-year war with Iraq from happening again.”
Khamenei’s advisor claimed that the goal of Americans’ presence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon is to put pressure on Iran and said if they manage to break up Iraq, they would come for Iran and what is happening in the region is a prelude to destruction of Iran regime.
Emphasizing the regime’s need for the nuclear negotiations, he admitted that Khamenei had to choose between war and negotiations.
In response to the TV host’s question of whether he still supports the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), Velayati said: “We surely had to negotiate and the negotiations were conducted with the system’s (Khamenei’s) permission. However, negotiations should have been done according to what Khamenei drew up. The system was in favor of the negotiations whether in this government or the previous government… If these negotiations were not conducted, the other option was war. So the negotiations had to be done…”