A former Iranian political prisoner sent a CNN panel off the rails after he said that Iran considered itself at war with the United States.
President Donald Trump announced that the United States military and the Israeli Defense Forces had launched Operation Epic Fury in a video posted on Truth Social early Saturday morning. Kian Tajbakhsh, who was imprisoned after the 2009 Green Revolution, related what an Iranian official told him during “CNN NewsNight” on Thursday. (RELATED: Trump Says US Decapitated Iranian Leadership As They Ate Breakfast)
“There is a big picture here and I, perhaps, to simplify it, I would put it this way,” Tajbakhsh said. “I don’t think it’s right to say that President Trump has started a war with Iran. I think President Trump wants to finish a war that Iran started in 1979, 47 years ago. And I’ll just — I’ll say this. These aren’t just words.”
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“Let me just tell you an anecdote,” Tajbakhsh continued. “In 2003, 2004, when I was there in Iran, working on projects at a very high level, I was talking with deputy ministers, I was talking with — going back and forth, and I was in the foreign ministry in Tehran where I met someone who was very senior, and he was semi-sympathetic with the projects we were doing.
“But as I was leaving, he looked me in the eye and he said, ‘You as an Iranian American, I want you to know something and listen very carefully,” said Tajbakhsh, continuing to relate the exchange. “He said, ‘We in this building,’ and what he meant is the foreign ministry, which meant representing the government, which means representing the regime, he said, ‘We believe we are at war with the United States.’ He said at that time, ‘It’s a cold war, but it’s a war nonetheless.’”
The first Trump administration killed Qasem Soleimani, a notorious commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in a Jan. 2020 strike. Soleimani was reportedly a crucial figure in providing advanced IED components that were used against American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Former CNN Global Affairs Correspondent Elise Labott and Foreign Policy Editor-in-Chief Ravi Agrawal both jumped in at that point.
“I think that — ” Labott said before Agrawal interrupted with, “I’ll just remind you —”
“I’ll let Elise respond really quickly,” host Abby Phillip said as Labott added, “Super quick. I think it’s inevitable that we’d be coming to this point. Okay? I think at some point a U.S. president would be involved in strikes against Iran. And it does turn out that president —” (RELATED: Reporter Presses Pete Hegseth To Define Objectives For Iran War)
Agrawal disagreed. Labott continued, expressing discomfort with “where we are.”
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable with where we are right now. And I definitely don’t feel comfortable with the messaging or the —”
During a Jan. 11 gaggle on Air Force One, Trump warned the theocratic regime was “starting to cross” a “red line” with its attacks on protesters. A human rights group confirmed nearly 6,900 protesters were killed by the theocratic regime, the BBC reported.
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