Iran's parliament speaker Ghalibaf says Israel is pulling the US into endless war

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's parliament, has accused Israel of trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran that would have no end. According to the foreign desk of N12, the Israeli television news outlet, Ghalibaf said Israelis were working overtime to pull Washington into such a conflict, which he described as a sinking swamp that no American president, present or future, Republican or Democrat, would be able to get out of.

News.co.il, an Israeli news site, reported that Ghalibaf attacked both Israel and the United States and added a warning: if the US keeps pursuing what he called a policy of putting Israel first, it and its allies could find themselves entering an era of darkness. The two Israeli outlets published their reports within minutes of each other.

Who Ghalibaf is

Ghalibaf heads Iran's parliament, formally the Islamic Consultative Assembly and commonly known as the Majlis. The speaker is one of the most senior elected officials in the Islamic Republic's political system, which also includes a president and, above both, the Supreme Leader, who holds final authority over foreign and military policy. The parliament speaker does not set Iran's strategy toward the United States or Israel on his own, but his public statements are widely read as a signal of the mood among the country's leadership.

The reports do not say where Ghalibaf made the remarks, whether in a speech, a parliamentary session or a post on social media, and they do not give the full text of what he said.

What he is arguing

The core of the statement, as both outlets relay it, is that Israel and the United States have different interests when it comes to Iran, and that Israel is the party pushing for confrontation. In the version carried by N12, Ghalibaf framed a war with Iran as a trap for American presidents of either party, an argument aimed as much at an American audience as at an Iranian one. In the version carried by News.co.il, the emphasis falls on the warning that the US and its allies could face an era of darkness if Washington continues on its current course.

The two reports do not contradict each other. They appear to highlight different parts of the same remarks: N12 quotes the passage about the endless war and the swamp, while News.co.il summarises the warning about an Israel-first policy and the darkness that could follow. Neither outlet carries both passages in full.

How this fits a familiar pattern

Israel and Iran are long-standing adversaries. Iran's leadership does not recognise Israel, and Israel regards Iran's nuclear programme, its missile arsenal and its backing of armed groups around the region as a central threat to its security. The United States is Israel's closest ally and main supplier of military aid.

Iranian officials have often sought to portray Israel as the driving force behind American pressure on Tehran, and to suggest that US voters and politicians are being drawn into conflicts that serve Israeli rather than American interests. Casting a war with Iran as a quagmire that would outlast any single presidency, and that would trap Republicans and Democrats alike, plays to debates inside the US about foreign military commitments. The phrase reported by News.co.il about an Israel-first policy turns that argument into a direct charge about whose interests guide Washington's decisions.

For readers following Israeli coverage, the fact that two Israeli outlets moved quickly to report the remarks reflects how closely statements from senior Iranian figures are tracked in Israel, particularly when they concern the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington.

What the reports do not say

Neither report says where or in what setting Ghalibaf spoke, or what, if anything, prompted the remarks. Neither reports any response from the Israeli government, the Israel Defense Forces or the US administration. The reports also do not explain what Ghalibaf meant by an era of darkness or whether he described any specific Iranian action that might follow.