Professor Mohammad Marandi and Jennifer Loewenstein argue that Iran is prepared for renewed US-Israeli aggression, warning that Washington’s military setbacks and economic pressures could carry serious regional and electoral consequences.Iran is prepared for another round of US-Israeli aggression whether it comes before or after the elections in Washington and Tel Aviv, Professor Mohammad Marandi said, as US human rights activist and journalist Jennifer Loewenstein warned that the White House’s claims of victory will only grow bolder as the midterms approach.“Iran is prepared for both scenarios, including between the two elections,” Marandi told Al Mayadeen’s The Grand Standoff: Iran and the World on Sunday. “Iran has prepared itself for decades. That’s what these underground missile and drone bases are for.”Iran’s arsenal outgrows its storageIran now holds far more missiles than it did when the war began, with output so high that storage has become a problem, Marandi revealed. “I have been told by very well-informed people that Iran has produced so many missiles that it is finding it difficult to store them, even though Iran is expanding its underground missile bases and creating new bases,” he said. He added that Iran is also expanding its drone program and upgrading all of its systems with new technology.Iranian strikes have grown “increasingly precise and devastating and evasive to U.S. countermeasures” since Trump undermined the memorandum of understanding (MOU) during a little over two weeks of fighting, Marandi noted. He pointed to Yemen’s missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, where “there’s no air defenses left” because they have been used up.Pressure on the Strait of Hormuz is compounding the squeeze on Washington, Marandi said. Ships and tankers have been destroyed or badly damaged on both sides of the Strait and far beyond it, “which shows that Iran can strike anywhere,” and admissions are now emerging that many of the earlier hits were never declared. Oil moving through the Strait is “very close to zero,” he added, and shortages of tankers and cargo ships will become more evident with time.Marandi credited Iran’s technological leap to officials such as new Defense Minister Mehrdad Akhlaghi, whom he said has been “deeply involved in very high-tech military technology and the development of that technology.”Akhlaghi’s knowledge of the tools manufactured by the Ministry of Defense is “quite immense,” Marandi said, and he knows better than anyone what Iran has and what it needs next. “It’s a war of technology,” Marandi stressed, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed astonishment more than once at how the Iranian people managed to defeat “the empire.”Loewenstein described a mismatch in strategy. The Iranian side is “careful, calculated, strategic, well-planned,” she said, and knows in advance what it wants, which includes forcing US troops and bases out of the region. The US side, by contrast, “completely lacks all coherence,” she said, noting that Washington has managed its defense budget “very poorly, which is one reason why we’re short on things like interceptors.”Washington’s story vs the war on the groundAmericans are hearing almost nothing about Iran, Loewenstein said. “I’ll turn on the evening news here to hear what’s happening in Iran, and there’s not a word about it,” she said, noting that coverage still finds room for Ukraine, France and Albania.She described two wars. One is what the administration tells the public, “basically lies or silence,” and the other is what is happening on the ground, “completely hidden from the public” unless people dig through experts and other sources. She cited Vice President JD Vance’s recent claim that the United States has “decisively won” the war.The US military, she said, appears frustrated with the president. “I’ve seen and read statements of frustration from some of the top military leaders,” she said, adding that she could be wrong. “Trump is ready to believe the easiest lies. He wants to believe that a few big bombs will take care of the whole matter,” she said.In her assessment, “this whole war is lost. It was lost a long time ago. It was lost the day it was started.”Marandi also saw Washington’s approach as a series of errors. “The Americans have made enormous miscalculations throughout this war,” he said, including the way they try to intimidate Iranians and assume their weapon systems will have an impact “that ultimately we see do not actually happen.”Two elections, one patternLoewenstein stated that Trump’s endorsement of Netanyahu came as no surprise, and that it will not change the direction of Israeli policy if Netanyahu loses power. “Whoever comes in to replace him, likely this man, Gadi Eisenkot, will want to prove that he’s just as tough as Netanyahu, and he will do so by being particularly vicious with Iran,” she said. “That’s my guess.”“Israel right now is a rogue nation, and its way of solving all of its created problems is by bombing, by military action, by ethnic cleansing, displacement, and so on,” she said. A majority of Americans, she added, are now disgusted by that approach, even as Trump aligns with the political establishment that backs it.Marandi argued that the war has become Trump’s biggest electoral liability. “The reason why Trump is losing the election, more than anything else, is because of the war he’s imposed against Iran,” he said.He also said French President Emmanuel Macron admitted that the war of aggression against Iran, which Macron supported, has caused “great difficulty and pain” in France and led to the current riots. “The ability to inflict pain and suffering on Iran’s tormentors is massive,” Marandi said, “and Iran can go far further than what it has already done.”Iran Demands US Implementation of Commitments Before New Terms, Marandi SaysTrust hinges on implementation, and ‘Israel’ draws greater alarmNothing the United States says carries weight in Tehran, Marandi said. “Only action is important for Iran,” he affirmed, explaining that the foreign minister put forward the “sandwiched MOU” to ensure Washington swiftly implements its obligations if it is serious.Trump signed the MOU and then refrained from implementing it, he said, just as he negotiated before the 12-day war and before this war while preparing to attack, even as the Omani foreign minister spoke of progress at the negotiating table.Marandi recalled that Washington began by demanding unconditional surrender from Iran and ended up accepting Iran’s 14-point plan as the framework for negotiations after 40 days of war. That ceasefire deal included Lebanon, he said, yet Netanyahu “carpet bombed Lebanon” to wreck it, and Trump sided with him.During the 40-day war, he said, “Israel” was struck day and night, and in the later US-Iran escalations it stayed out. He added that former Trump aide Steve Bannon said on a podcast that it was Netanyahu who begged for a ceasefire in the 12-day war. “Everything that it has is from the United States. It’s from the West,” Marandi said, “and the weaker the West becomes, the weaker this regime becomes.”Loewenstein highlighted that “Israel” worries her more than the United States. Trump cares about his image and does not want to be remembered as the president who caused a global economic crisis, she said.“I don’t think Netanyahu and his regime care about world opinion or what happens in the world,” she said. “Israel has proven that it will stop at nothing to get its way, and that should be cause for alarm for anyone paying attention to this war.” She added that Washington and “Israel” remain capable of causing “enormous damage and suffering and loss of life to people in the region, especially Iran.”The real aim of the warMarandi argued that the performance of Iran’s missile bases undermines US claims about Iran’s nuclear program. “Not a single one of them has ever been even badly damaged,” he said of the missile bases, despite severe US and Israeli attacks. “If the Iranian missile and drone bases are so well protected and so deep underground that the Americans cannot damage them, then why should one assume that the United States was able to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, which was obviously even deeper underground?”He said it is “quite possible” that Iran’s nuclear assets are “all very much intact,” while acknowledging he has no personal knowledge. IAEA inspectors have not been in Iran since the wars began, he noted, so “they really have no idea how Iran is protecting its legitimate nuclear assets.” The “mother of all bombs” Trump keeps invoking is, according to reports, less effective than the bombs used in the 12-day war, he added.Loewenstein dismissed the nuclear file as a pretext. “I don’t think the nuclear issue is really the issue that matters here. I don’t think it ever has been the real issue,” she said, calling it “a red herring that is put out to the Americans to scare them into believing that this war is necessary, when it’s not necessary.”“This war is about power and hegemony for the United States, for the Western imperial order, and the Western imperial order is on the decline in a major way,” she said. The United States will probably have to pull back its troops and bases, she added, because “we’ve proven that the Americans cannot offer their Gulf allies any kind of security, and that’s because those are the first targets for Iran to strike.” (Al Mayadeen-English)