That's how, during the war, Israel attempted to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian
+ “Iran”, Iran's greatest resource + Western media wage cognitive warfare against us: collapse or Iranian identity resistance?
Today I am providing my English translation of 3 articles, all originally in Italian and from ComeDonChisciotte.org.
The first one was published on the Italian Telegram channel Notizie dall’Iran Islamico e Rivoluzionario (News from Islamic and Revolutionary Iran) and then on ComeDonChisciotte.org today, Sunday 13th July 2025. (Bold emphasis mine).
That's how, during the war, Israel attempted to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian
Yesterday [Saturday 12th July 2025], the Iranian news agency Fars News published a detailed report on the Israeli attack on Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).
On 15th June [2025], the third day of the war, Israeli intelligence managed to locate the site of a high-level SNSC meeting, which was being held on the lower floors of a government building in western Tehran. The meeting was attended by Iran's top leaders, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, and other senior political and military officials.
The attack was carried out with remarkable precision, using six bunker-buster missiles that struck the entrances and ventilation points of the structure, deliberately attempting to trap the officials inside. This method mirrored Israel's assassination plan for [Hezbollah Secretary-General] Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and was clearly aimed at killing several senior Iranian leaders in a single attack. Despite the severity of the explosions, all participants managed to escape through a pre-installed emergency hatch. Several of them sustained minor injuries during the evacuation, including President Pezeshkian, who reportedly suffered a leg injury.
The incident triggered an intense investigation in Iran, with authorities strongly suspecting infiltration or espionage. Precise knowledge of the building's structure and the timing of the meeting led Iranian intelligence to believe that a spy had provided crucial information to Israeli forces.
Further information provided by Iranian intelligence sources reveals that, two hours before the launch of the Israeli offensive, Iran had acquired reliable information indicating an imminent Israeli attack. However, the Tehran leadership had underestimated its scope and expected any aggression to be limited to attacks on nuclear infrastructure, particularly sites such as Natanz. The reality turned out to be much broader and more devastating. The Israeli campaign extended to military and civilian targets in Tehran and other key urban centres.
In the first 24 hours of the attack, the Iranian leadership was shaken by a series of high-impact strikes, including the targeted killings of Brigadier Generals Hosseyn Salami and Mohammad Bagheri, as well as a direct attack on the headquarters of Iran's General Command. These sudden losses reportedly disoriented the Iranian military chain of command, causing confusion at the highest levels.
Amid the chaos, Imam Khamenei acted quickly and decisively. Within hours, he issued urgent executive orders to appoint replacement commanders and convene the political leadership. His intervention, described as crucial, was instrumental in stabilising the military situation and turning around Iran's response during the 12 days of war.
Despite the failure of the operation, the episode highlighted the sophistication of Israeli intelligence operations and the gravity of the ongoing war. Investigations into the security breach surrounding the National Security Council meeting continue, with authorities focusing on how such detailed operational information could have reached the enemy.
The same story was also covered today by Al Mayadeen in this article.
In case you missed it, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian himself acknowledged the Israeli assassination attempt against him in an interview with Tucker Carlson last Monday, 7th July 2025. If you have not watched it (yet), I strongly recommend that you watch the whole interview, as it is very interesting and enlightening.
The attack on Pezeshkian’s life was also confirmed last Thursday, 10th July 2025, by his advisor Sayyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, as reported by Al Mayadeen.
The second article, by Seyed Majid Emami, was published on Thursday 26th June 2025.
(All emphasis original).
“Iran”, Iran's greatest resource
Iran's millennial historical identity has been the soft power of this great nation-state, which has always played a fundamental role at the centre of regional and global geostrategic changes and threats. Historical identity, in the form of “national memory” and belief in the identity and essence of our collective, emerges at the level of the “present” and acts as productive capital.
In the historical memory of the Iranian people, the aspiration for independence is linked to patriotism and especially to territorial integrity. In reality, for Iranians, when foreign interference and aggression arise (this “foreigner” or “outsider” has been mentally constructed since the Safavid period and the confrontation with the Ottomans onwards), a meaning and a penetrating pain emerge. This pain, with the intensity and acuteness of history and the depth and antecedence of the “idea of Iran” that has always been associated with civilisation, robs its possessor of peace and tranquillity.
Iranians in the contemporary period have experienced this pain to varying degrees: in World War II, in Saddam's war against Iran, and now, on the morning of Friday 13th June 2025, they are once again subjected to a lightning attack.
Israel's recent war against Iran is an example of a “hybrid” and “cognitive” war that focuses not only on the military field, but also on the mindset and domestic and international public opinion. The expectation was that the lightning-fast and terrorist nature of the opening of this war would lead to the construction of the “aggressor” as an irresistible superpower in the eyes of the people, just as some Iranians previously believed in the impossibility of economic resistance against the dominant neoliberal order and the hegemony of the dollar. But this time there was an important difference: land and blood! The defensive and offensive capabilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite the losses and surprise, were nevertheless preserved, and in less than 12 hours after the attack, it rebuilt its capacity to respond.
Although the harassing attacks and drones guided from within the vast uncontrollable geography continued to sow terror, as the aggressor was foreign, social warmth and cohesion increased. On the second day of the war, when authoritative polling centres asked the people about the need for confrontation, response and resistance against the dominant aggressor, more than 75% were in favour and the rest mainly abstained; those in favour of passivity and acceptance of enemy aggression did not exceed 10%.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the war between Iran and the Zionist regime, the public polling and data analysis centre YouGov asked American citizens: “Should (should not) the US military intervene in the conflict between Israel and Iran?”. According to the results, 60% of all American respondents were opposed to America entering the conflict between Israel and Iran. Furthermore, the classification of respondents according to political (party) orientation shows that 65% of Democrats, 53% of Republicans and 53% of Trump voters in the 2024 elections are opposed to American interference in the war between Iran and Israel.
Israel's dependence on external military logistics, especially aerial refuelling and limited production of advanced weaponry, was considered a strategic weakness for this regime, which without American support did not have the capacity to continue operations. In this defence, Iran's strategy was not and is not based on blind revenge, but is founded on the creation of strategic limitations and internal attrition through soft power and military deterrence. Regional geopolitical conditions, the involvement of European and Persian Gulf countries, and developments on the ground can quickly transform the equations, but Iran had the necessary preparation and infrastructure to deal with any scenario. However, more than anything else, it was collective insurrection and national cohesion that revived the eroded social capital of the last ten years and increased mental resilience.
The enemy failed to direct the dominant mindset towards the being or non-being of the Iranian political system; the social mindset and public opinion agenda focused on its honourable end or endless continuation, and it is from here that, in my opinion, it pushed the aggressor and its accomplice towards a ceasefire.
Otherwise, when one side has military superiority and material power, why should it miss the opportunity? Of course, some still think of balkanising or lebanising Iran to realise the kingdom of Israel, but they do not realise that the soft power of nations, even in this era of dissolution of moral and legal orders and international regimes, has the last word. This power cannot be bought or painted; this power is hidden in the history, language and spirit of societies.
The third and final article, also by Seyed Majid Emami, was published on Friday 4th July 2025. (All formatting original).
Western media wage cognitive warfare against us: collapse or Iranian identity resistance?
Western Narrative and Iranian Reality
Western media, due to a lack of tradition in maintaining correspondents and offices in Iran, a certain dependence on the dominant information flow, and existing problems between Iran and some European countries, are generally deprived of Iranian realities.
At critical moments, such as the Israeli attack on Iran, they try to use Iranians living in their countries as eyewitnesses and local narrators. The repetitive narrative of these pseudo-experts, according to the preferences of the dominant media, is the collapse of Iran – for at least four years, Iranian society and, consequently, the Iranian government have been described as collapsed in the Western media! But why does this narrative continue to be so far removed from what is really happening in Iran? Who wins in this distortion and cognitive warfare?
Iran is a very diverse (heterogeneous) society and in past decades, especially with an urban and young demographic structure, it has witnessed accelerated cultural changes. According to the highest estimates, about seven million Iranians live in various countries around the world, especially in the United States and Europe, constituting a diverse and unstable diaspora.
This means that it does not even reach ten per cent of the Iranian population of about ninety million. The presence of some of these Iranians who are fluent in the language of the host media, as we have seen on Italian television networks over the past two weeks, can lead to cognitive distortion and strategic misunderstanding.
The media, although controlled and agenda-driven by investors and owners, should never forget their professional responsibility and long-term interests. One of the manifestations that has remained unknown in the West with Eurocentrism and non-indigenous parameters is the lack of accompaniment of Iranians with the opposition supported by the external West and their unprecedented solidarity in the face of aggression by the enemy or the “foreigner”.
Iranian National Identity: Tradition and Modernity
The Iranian nation has its own definition; it cannot be considered a nation in the modern sense of the term. In the modern sense, it is mainly indicators and material and modern aspects such as geography and language that, although important in their own right, have had and continue to have the power to build the nation. But in the realisation of the idea called the Iranian nation, we have witnessed an unprecedented link between spiritual and material components.
Documents, literature and historical works show that both before and after Islam, the orientation towards justice was one of the most important components of “Iran”. This meant that they united quickly and without hesitation in the face of the external enemy. This component was combined with spiritual and family orientation. Ethnic diversity in Iran is also mainly oriented towards strengthening national power: Turks, Kurds, Baluchis, Lurs, Arabs, Turkmen, Persians and dozens of other ethnic groups and dialects in Iran cannot ignore their common and interconnected history.
But all this is not enough for the persistence and permanence of a nation based on a common ideal and national honour, unless these same peoples with the same proportion and significance were present during the Mongol invasion (1219-1256 AD), the Afghan invasion (1722), the occupation of the Caucasus by Tsarist Russia (two periods: 1803-1813 and 1826-1828), and the unofficial occupation during World War II by the Allies (1941).
So why did the aggressor, at least initially, succeed in achieving its objectives?
During Saddam's invasion of Iraq, when Iran was going through a post-revolutionary period and was also internally involved with terrorist groups opposed to the system, did Saddam's ground forces manage to advance as far as Tehran or even Ahvaz?
The Role of the State in the Formation of National Identity
The answer is clear: for the realisation and construction of a collective “we” and the formation of the authority of a territory (as a real nation), a combative and resistant state is also necessary. In all the previous examples, we were dealing with a weak state, not in practice but in motivation and theory. The ideology necessary for national independence has been enshrined in the fundamental structures of the state in today's Iran (such as Articles 9, 43 and 154 of the Constitution).
The leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both with an understanding of the bitter experience of colonialism in the Islamic world, were not creators of enemies but fighters against enemies, while declaring friendship and the need for communication with the whole world.
Collective identity can, in practice and not just in dreams, reach a consensus on the idea of homeland when the framework and context for this resistance exists, i.e. the “strong state”. Unwitting pawns, empty thrones, illusory despotisms, proxy and hired gendarmes certainly do not have the capacity to ensure that supportive and resistant nations rely on them. What happened in the occupation of Iraq or the collapse of Gaddafi's Libya is a lesson before us.
Power, from the Iranian perspective, is first and foremost based on science, labour and endogenous capital, and secondly, it is at the service of the national ideal and the general will.
This is how resistance is not missile-based or atomic, but identity-based.
Today, just by breathing in the streets of Tehran, one can perceive the remnants of an identity in its historical continuity, not through repetition and indoctrination!
Iran: The Last Geography Against “De-nationalisation”
A complete and healthy national identity leads to practical independence, and independence generates civilisation. Israel is an anti-national identity idea (national identity with both subjective and objective pillars), that is, someone who produces strength from within himself; that is, societies that have endogeneity. The formation of this number of “non-nations” around us has been made possible by the presence of Israel.
The Iranian nation is among the last geographies that resisted “de-nationalisation” and found itself in a moment of awakening and created endogenous strength from within itself. This nation has thus succeeded in placing itself in the position of “historical man”. This is a real geographical contradiction that manifests itself on earth and is not just something related to minds or theories and ideologies. This happens on earth. Where does it happen? Where they tell you that you have no right to create your own prosperity!
This force produces “non-nations” from nations. Today, for the most part, “development” in the Middle East is exogenous development.
When you want to have strength on your own, your movement is suppressed because of the presence of Israel. So what is Israel? Israel is the most important force that produces “non-nations” around us; it produces “non-nations” from nations.
The peoples of our region are ancient peoples and they all share great histories; a history that is suppressed. Israel is the suppression of that history, and that history was the mother of human history. The genealogy of Iran's identity resistance must be found here.
This final, beautiful paragraph is food for thought. History is a threat to Israel masters (USUK+)
who have been trying to reduce and anonymise people since the beginning of Western history.
I think it would be fair to say, the entire world now stands in solidarity with the Iranians.