the government has decided not to put women under pressure/ Iran never had proxies

Davos Annual Meeting 2025

The Centre for Regions, Trade and Geopolitics

A Conversation with Javad Zarif, Vice-President for Strategic Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Fareed Zakaria: Joining me now, of course, is a man who needs no introduction. Probably the most famous visible face of Iran over the last three decades that people have encountered. Deputy foreign ministry, Ambassador to the UN, now Vice-President. Javad Zarif, it’s a pleasure to have you on.

Javad Zarif: Good to be with you

Fareed Zakaria: Let me begin by telling you what it look like to me right now in terms of Iran’s position in the region. I think one could make an argument that Iran has never been in a weaker position. You made a huge bet on Assad in Syria, enormous amount of money, arms militias, Assad is gone! Hezbollah, key ally in Lebanon, has been decapitated three times over, decimated in terms of its force. You have relations with Hamas; Hamas leadership has been destroyed. Its tunnel infrastructure has been destroyed. The whole idea of the “Axis of resistance” – these militia groups, these sub-state actors that were going to push back against Israel, against the Gulf Arabs, American interests – it all seems to be much much weaker than it was before. I’m sure you’re going to disagree. So tell me why?

Javad Zarif: Well, first of all. Let me make two points because we don’t have much time. In 1982, if you can remember, Sharon invaded Lebanon. Pushed all the way into Beirut, because in 1978 he pushed until the Litanyriver in order to prevent the Palestinians from firing into Israel. In 1982  he went all the way to Beirut in order to basically decimate the Palestinian resistance. He sent Arafat to exile to Tunisia.

So what happened?

From 1981 to 1987: Islamic Jihad was born in 1981, Hezbollah was born in 82, and Hamas was born between 1985 and 1987.

So I wouldn’t suggest anybody to start rejoicing over destroying Hamas, Hezbollah or the Palestinian resistance or to “cutting Iran’s arms”!

Because the resistance will stay as long as the Occupation stays; as long repression stays.

Resistance to Israel, to Israeli occupation, to Apartheid, to genocide, existed before the Iranian revolution.

It came to being reinforced exactly at a time when Israel and Sharon believed they had wiped out the resistance.

I think right now, as you look at Gaza, Hamas is still there. Netanyahu did not achieve his goal of destroying Hamas. Hamas is still there. Israel had to come to a ceasefire temporarily, I hope it will be permanent for the sake of 50 thousand people who were massacred. A genocide by Israel!

So that there would not be another 50 thousand!

Resistance is not dead! I can tell you that the wishes for the resistance to go away has been based on a misrepresentation. A framing by Israel that this is not an Israeli-Palestinian issue but an Israeli-Iranian issue. That’s number one!

Number two: Go back to 1981-82 and move all the way to 2022, 2004! Give me a single instance where this resistance operated on Iranian behalf?

They always worked for their own cause, even at our expense. They never carried our orders! We did not know about October 7^th. Actually we were supposed to have a meeting with the Americans on JCPOA renewal on October 9^th, which was undermined and destroyed by this operation.

Fareed Zakaria: But then it makes the case that this been a very unwise investment for Iran to be funding all these militias, which are not even doing Iran’s interests.

Zarif: Let’s not talk about funding because a lot of people are funding a lot of things and are not successful.

Let’s focus on the fact that we have supported peoples’ rights. Now, Israeli actions are a matter of jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in the case of genocide. A matter of criminal jurisdiction at the International Criminal Court in terms of Netanyahu and the minister of Defense.

And they cannot come to Davos. The [Israeli] president can come to Davos because he’s a nobody in Israel. (To reciprocate what he said yesterday). Otherwise, he would’ve had to go The Hague instead of Davos. This is the reality on the ground. People will continue to resist. Now, why am I making this statement?

Because if you want to resolve the problem of Palestine, you should look at the Palestinian issue. As long as the Palestinian issue is there, the struggle will be there. The resistance will be there. And there will be support from the international community, including from Arab allies of the United States.

Fareed Zakari: I take your point. But if I may, with respect, you didn’t answer my question about Iran’s position. You’ve lost a key ally in Assad, you lost, or at least have a much weaker ally in Hezbollah, your air defenses have been destroyed…

Zarif: That’s a claim

Fareed Zakari: We have reports of – you tell me it’s not true but – there’re reports of generals in Iran talking about the fact that they paid a very heavy price for the support of Assad. Is it not true that you are in a much weaker position?

Zarif: Let me again make a couple of points. We fought Iraq when we didn’t have any air defense. When we didn’t have any weapons. When the United States was providing Iraq with AWACS, when the French were providing Iraq with EXOCETT missiles and Mirage fighters, when Germany was providing Iraq with chemical weapons, when Britain was providing Iraq with Chieftain tanks, when Russia – Soviet Union at that time – was providing Iraq with MiGs and Scud missiles, when China at that time was providing Iraq with silkworm missiles.

We didn’t have anything. We stood against Iraq for eight years and we did not give up an inch of our territory.  So, first of all, the story about destroying our air defense is a story! And there is a reason behind it.

Fareed Zakaria: You’re saying it didn’t happen?

Zarif: No, we suffered. But it doesn’t mean that we lost our air defense!

And secondly, we have fought against a well-equipped army – equipped by everybody – when nobody was giving us any weapons for eight years. And we didn’t lose an inch of our territory. And that’s something that didn’t happen in Iran for 220 years. For the previous 220 years, we had lost every war in which we engaged. This is the first government in Iran that has not lost any territory in the past two and a half century.

So, we’re not talking about a weak government.

I answered you question by saying that find me a single instance when these groups, which are, I think erroneously called “Iranian proxies”, operated on our behalf?

If they did not operate on our behalf, what do they do for our strength?

Now, you can tell me that we worked on their behalf diplomatically and that gave us strength. But we never tried to cash our investment in the region. You now tell me that it was a foolish investment. I believe you and I belong to a school of thought in social science which does not believe in only material power. Both of us believe in ideational power. The fact that Iran can in fact move people in the streets in may parts of the world, gives us power, with or without Hezbollah. We still possess that power. We can still move people, inspire people, as we did in the beginning of the Revolution.

It may not be as good as it was, because we have our own failures domestically and we need to work on that.

Now, let me tell you what I wrote in Foreign Affairs and you’ve read it.

Now for us, is the time to move forward. We have been looking at our surrounding as a threat, because of our history. Now, we have proven time and again that we will not be an easy food to swallow! Because we were! We used to be!

I mean the Brits, the Russians took over Iran, imposed on us a famine after the Second World War. Nobody thinks of Iran as such an easy place to carry out their whims.

So, let’s move forward based on opportunity rather than based on threats.

Fareed Zakaria: So, let’s talk about that. Let me start by asking, US intelligence says Iran is weeks, sometimes days, away from the breakout capacity to build a nuclear weapon. Is that true, and will you?

Zarif: Had we wanted to build a nuclear weapon, we could’ve done it a long time ago. A program to build nuclear weapon is not going to be like our program. You build nuclear weapons in hidden laboratories that are not subject to international inspection. People who are worried about our nuclear program, like the Israelis, they say that we’re days away from a nuclear weapon. So why didn’t they welcome the JCPOA? The JCPOA, in the worst analysis, would’ve kept Iran away from nuclear weapons for at least 15 years. So people who are saying that Iran will have – I mean Netanyahu has been saying from 1994, 96 that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in six months – now we’re about what? Thirty years late and we’re still couple of days away from nuclear weapons?

This is what we call in our jargon, “securitization”, not security. Iran is not a security threat. Some people want to frame Iran as a security threat. Iranophobia, Islamophobia are tools to carry out programs like the genocide in Gaza! Always saying that we’re doing this against Iran! But you’re doing it against CHILDREN in Gaza!

If you want to resolve the Palestinian issue, the only solution, and I think that everybody that has spoken in Davos 2025, probably with the exception of the man you interviewed yesterday, have insisted that the only solution is a viable Palestinian state

Fareed Zakari: Let me ask you about the Foreign Affairs you wrote. You talked about under Trump, there may be an opportunity for a deal with Iran. I was surprised by that because Trump is that person who pulled out the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA. Why do you think that the guy who pulled out of the nuclear deal, reimposed American sanctions on Iran, said I want “maxium pressure” on Iran, why is that an opportunity?

Zarif: There’s always hope that people will choose rationality. In order to be more serious, let me give you a chronology.

John Bolton went to Paris in February of 2017.

Fareed: At this point, he’s Trump’s National Security Adviser?

Zarif: No. He wrote an article in, I think, late 2016, giving a blueprint for Trump to get out of the JCPOA. In February of 2017, he went to Paris, spoke to this gathering of MEK. I think his tax return shows that he received 40K dollars for it. They tell me that he lied on his tax sheets, so he may have received…

Zakaria: This is the group that advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government.

Zarif: It was on the terrorist list of the United States for some time.

He [Bolton] said in that speech, “Next time, this year, in Tehran!”

He was appointed National Security Advisor in April.

Pompeo was confirmed as Secretary of State on April 26^th. He went to Israel on April 28^th and asked Netanyahu to put out that show about the “documents” they had uncovered form Iran.

Trump pulled out of the JCPOA on May 8^th.

You look at this sequence of events, and I have reason – from what I heard from leaders of other countries – that they had convinced Trump of two things

One, Iran was crumbling, and a sudden withdrawal from JCPOA would be the last nail on Iran’s coffin.

Second that, with these forged documents that Netanyahu was showing, there would be an international support for the United States to withdraw from the JCPOA.

Now, I hope that this time, he kicked Bolton out, he kicked Hook out, he kicked Pompeo out, because Pompeo was seeking an appointment. Hook was there until, what, yesterday?

He withdrew the secret service support from John Bolton, [which was there] on the bogus charge that Iran was trying to kill him, which has been bogus from the very beginning.

So, I hope, that this time around, a Trump 2, will be more serious, more focused, more realistic to know that the withdrawal that was imposed on him – and he’s said it that he did it for Israel. And he’s said now that he won’t do anything for any other country. He said in on his inauguration.

After he withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran has gained much more nuclear capability based on your “breakout” calculations. I don’t do breakout calculations because we don’t want to break out! But on American breakout calculations, we were a year away from a nuclear weapon when Bolton wrote that whatever Executive Order to get Trump out. A Memorandum to get Trump out. And today, even the Americans say we’re a few days away!

So, in terms of being able to dissuade Iran, it has failed!

It has imposed heavy economic cost on the Iranian people. Of course, the Iranian government is suffering, but the Iranian people, and the most vulnerable groups in Iran, are suffering the most.

Fareed Zakaria: There are people in Washington who talk about a new deal. A new Iran nuclear deal but one that would also include a pledge by Iran not to continue supporting proxies or..

Zarif: We never had proxies.

Fareed Zakaria: Alright! Not supporting groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. Would Iran consider such a deal?

Zarif: You see? The United States would always insist that we should have a regional deal. Now, we have a regional deal. We have good relations with Saudi Arabia, we have good relations with United Arab Emirates. I have proposed in an article I recently wrote in the Economist, after my Foreign Affairs article, that we should have a new arrangement in this region. I call it MWADA. Muslim West Asia Dialogue Association. MWADA, which the acronym in Arabic means “Amity”.

So, the title in the Economist was “Amity instead of Enmity”!

Let’s do that. So, we’re there. And you say, “our arms are cut off?”. So, what do they worry about then?

If Iran doesn’t have any strength in the region, if Iran’s arms…

Fareed Zakaria: But the pledge is not to help them rebuild. Would you consider that?

Zarif: The problem is that’s the wrong address! The address for the resistance in the region is in Tel Aviv. It’s in Israeli genocide, occupation, apartheid and violation of Palestinians’ rights. The address is not in Tehran! The United States and Israel, for the next 50 years, can push Iran! That will not resolve the Palestinian issue.

If you want to resolve the Palestinian issue, the only solution, and I think that everybody that has spoken in Davos 2025, probably with the exception of the man you interviewed yesterday, have insisted that the only solution is a viable Palestinian state. Unless this solution is reached, there’ll be more resistance, there’ll be more groups, with or without Iran’s help.

Iran has always supported the struggle of people for their human rights, for their right to self-determination, and we will continue to support that. But that’s not the cause! There has to be a struggle before you can support it. Your support does not create the struggle. There is a struggle. There is a resistance cause by the fact that there is an occupation, aggression, violation of human rights.

Fareed Zakari: Let me ask you about what’s going on in Iran with regards to human rights. I was in Saudi Arabia a few times in the last year. Saudi women came to me and said, they were very proud that now in Saudi Arabia, women have far more rights than in Iran. This president, the new president, said he was going to make it possible for women to wear whatever that want. That they would not have to wear the scarves, that the morality police would be prevented from what I regard as harassment of women. This does not seem to have happened yet. Will it?

Zarif: Well, you see. I’m proud to have had a role in the formation of the Iranian cabinet. And we have four women in our cabinet. At the cabinet level.

Fareed Zakaria: Can they attend the cabinet meetings without their hair uncovered?

Zarif: Well, they choose not to because they believe in the law of the country. Now, you go to the streets of Tehran, you’ll see that there are a lot of women not covering their hair. It’s against the law but the government has decided not to put women under pressure. And this was a promise that president Pezeshkian made and the promise is being observed. He did not implement the law with the consent of the leadership. I don’t mean the Leader. I mean the leadership of the country: the head of Parliament, the head of Judiciary, and others, like the National Security Council.

So, we’re moving in the right direction. We have, for the first time, our ethnic minorities as governors in Iranian Kurdistan, in Iranian Baluchistan. We have a minority member of the cabinet. So, there are things I’m sure president Pezeshkian is proud of as the person who was responsible for the formation of the cabinet. I’m very proud.

It’s not enough Fareed. It’s a step in the right direction.

Fareed Zakaria: There are hardliners in Iran who don’t like you. In fact you are currently – I don’t understand the complete specifics – but they’ve taken you to court or they’ve filed cases in court to have you dismissed you from your current job. Is this going to succeed? I mean basically the argument is your children have American citizenship.

Zarif: My children were born in the United States.

Fareed Zakaria: So, they’re birthright citizens.

Zarif: When I was a student.

Fareed Zakaria: Will this effort succeed, and more importantly, doesn’t it reveal – what the president of Israel said – which is that the hardliners which are often seen as controlling core security policy, don’t trust people like you. That they want to make policy and what you say in places like Davos doesn’t matter because they’re actually the guys running things.

Zarif: Actually they’re not, because I’m here. Had they been running the show, I would be – according to their vision – not even free to walk the streets, not the streets of Davos, but not even the streets of Tehran.

But, it shows that Iran is not a uni-voice, single-voice society. We have many voices, many views, and we cannot shut them down. Now, in other places, at one time they shut down the voices of progress and at other time, they shut down the voices of tradition. We don’t!

Voices of progress, voices of – I don’t like these labels – but voices that like more open policies are very active. Voices that are against us, are also very active. They lose in elections, they win elections. Last election, we lost. This election we won but it was a very close competition. The first time in my life that I’ve done anything “domestic” was during this campaign. And I had to go to town after town campaigning for President Pezeshkian, then candidate Pezeshkian. And I know, I’ve sensed it with all my being that, this was a tough race. A real race, with a real choice. It would’ve been much different under Pezeshkian’s competitor or under his rival or whatever in the election. If today, instead of President Pezeshkian, you had president Jalili, you might have had a major war in the region. So, there is plurality in Iran, there are differences of views in Iran. I respect these different views. I don’t accept people who are running smear campaigns against me to shut down or to be quieted by the government. Because if we do it to them, tomorrow they’ll do it to us. And they have more power to do it. So I think, it’s good that they’re taking me to court. Not taking me, taking the government to court to try to dismiss me because they think my appointment was a violation of the law. That’s their interpretation. We have a different interpretation and if the case goes through the court, if the court decides that it has jurisdiction to hear it, the government will present its argument, if the court decides that I should go, I’ll go!

It won’t be the end of the world. I’ll start teaching again. This is my third reincarnation. I mean, I was sent back home after I was Iran’s ambassador to the UN. I went home and stayed in university for 6 years.  I was later reincarnated as Foreign Minister. And then after my term as foreign minister ended, I went to the university and had 3 wonderful years, writing two books. And now I’m back. I can go back to university. Or have a retirement. It’s time.

Fareed Zakaria: Mr. Vice-President, pleasure to have you.

Zarif: Good to see you Fareed again.